




--.—.— z—- 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



;i- Cqiyririijl T)a. 

ShelfT.S 1007 

a in m 1:1:1/1. 



UNITED STATES 



PROSE IDYLS 



BY 



JOHN ALBEE 







NOV 18 1892 

BOSTON AND NEW YORK [ 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

1892 









U T 'I 



Copyright, 1892, 
By JOHN ALBEE. 

All rights reserved. 

: 



The Riverside Press, Camfrridce, .' ' < A. 

Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. 



TO 

E. A. and L. S. A. 



CONTENTS 



PAGH 

White Thoughts i 

Helen's Trees 4 

Nieban and Launa 9 

Grammarian in Love 15 

Pain and Pleasure 20 

The Cracked Bell 24 

The Mind Curer 27 

Creation 29 

Poeta Nascitur ; . . 32 

The Egoists 34 

A Reminiscence of Virgil 36 

The Bird Sang 39 

The Madonna 44 

March Meeting 46 

The Statue of my Friend 53 

A Child of God 58 

The Faith Curer 61 

The Queen's Handkerchief 65 

The Mask Veil : A Dream Story 69 

The Red House 82 

Love Letters 93 

The Devil's Bargain . . — f 96 

The Soul of Things 104 

The House Door 109 

The Voice 112 

The Writer's Walk 121 



vi Contents 

The Secret of Authorship 12S 

The Pool: A Socialistic Apologue 135 

The Governor 143 

Pigmies 146 

Brethren of the Common Lot 14S 

The Superfluous Man 156 

The Family Mirror 160 

A Mountain Maid 166 

The Divided House 170 



PROSE IDYLS 



WHITE THOUGHTS 

The young maiden looks out be- 
tween the curtains of her window in 
the early morning before she is half 
dressed. 

She is still nearly all in white ; her 
lips and cheeks are flushed with joy- 
ous dreams ; and, luminous under her 
marble brow, they resemble the pink 
blossoms of the arbutus among its 
white sisters. 

She looks out of the window and 
sees the earth buried in snow. The 
roofs are covered with a white thatch 
that bends under the eaves like a 
giant's hands curled up with the cold. 
The trees, too, bear great plumes of 
snow at the extreme ends of their 



2 Prose Idyls 

branches ; they hang almost to the 
ground with the weight. The sky 
itself is no longer blue ; it is the color 
of milk. 

Why should winter and cold clothe 
themselves always in such pale robes ? 
mused the maiden. Even the winter 
sun is white. 

She resumes her dressing. 

But her thoughts look out of the 
window. The snow-robed earth makes 
her think of weddings, of brides, of 
the long satin train, the white veil 
coming down almost to the feet and 
flowing over the head like a mist. 
Her cheeks grow more rosy. 

Then she thinks of the dead in their 
winding-sheets ; the same whiteness, 
the pale face, the blanched lips, death's 
pallor, which is but an extinguished 
white ; the shroud almost as long and 
full as a bridal dr. 

Why should love and death alike 
be decked in white 5 she mused. Is it 
then only that we become wholly pure ? 



White T ho icghts 



Then she completes her toilet. But 
she lingers as having forgotten some- 
thing. She draws the curtains wide 
apart and gazes long, out upon the 
milky sky, upon the snow glittering in 
the sun like an immense tapestry 
wrought with pearls and diamonds. 

Once more she returns to the mirror, 
as if she had just remembered some- 
thing. 

She selects the whitest flower from 
her lover's bouquet and arranges it 
over her bosom. 

She thinks no more of the white 
winter, the buried earth, the pallid 
ghosts. It is summer in her heart. 



HELEN'S TREES. 

I own a thousand trees ; yes, a 
forest — a forest that extends from the 
mountain to the valley which opens 
into the world. 

My trees, full of leafiness and sweet 
with unnamed perfumes, reflect their 
gigantic shadows in the lake ; they 
softly wave their topmost sprays be- 
fore the inexorable blue doors of the 
sky, down there in that silent, silver 
mirror. 

Yet because of Helen's trees mine 
no longer satisfy me. Hers she has 
named with names she loves. Mine 
stand nameless ; and futile it is for 
them to shoot upward, or flaunt a 
bolder instep as their feet sink deeper 
beneath the moss-covered mould. Y 
shall be cut down, you nameless ones, 
if you continue thus vainly to grow ; 



Helen s Trees 5 

nor shall the duplicity of your images 
in the lake flatter me any longer ; and 
as you have no names, you shall not 
be remembered ; nor shall the Dryads 
shriek as you fall, for they dwell not in 
my forest. The subtle-minded Helen 
has shepherded them all into hers ; 
and Diana hunts there, and Pan pipes, 
and even the bears from the moun- 
tain she has made welcome. 

I, alas ! never remembered the di- 
vinities, nor did I name any tree after 
the goddesses whom I adore. Deftly 
I trained them, lopping away the lower 
limbs for unwished light, unminded of 
the wonted retreats of the timid satyrs 
and the fauns that love to crop the 
tender, shaded sprouts. So I made all 
like a park, wherein men walk who 
fear beasts and are in dread to meet 
the wood nymphs. And I bethought 
me of all the manifold uses of the 
trunks of my trees, when they should 
be scarfed by the woodman's axe ; I 
rejoiced when I saw them shorn and 



6 Prose Idyls 

hewn and forever imprisoned under 
my feet and over my head. 

Now, alas ! the beams of my house 
afflict me like ghosts, and they wave 
long supplicating or deprecatory arms 
toward me, even as yonder winter-worn 
trees toss their baffled branches in the 
windy night against the cold and rigid 
stars. 

I will retract all my thoughts of 
the utilities of my forest ; for Helen's 
trees are not beams ; their august 
spires touch the heavens — the Ura- 
nian heavens which Pan and all the 
Muses gave to her when they conse- 
crated her groves. Too late — too late 
I saw the good of disuse and unprofit- 
ableness. 

And I envy them their names. But 
I cannot do what another has done. 
Neither can anything be done twice 
that is beautiful ; and my trees may 
outgrow and overtop hers — they will 
still be common tree 

I know what I will do. I will dis- 



Helen s Trees 



own them ; and even the white birches 
that stand at the portal of my forest, 
like brides coming out of their cham- 
bers, shall have cause to weep for neg- 
lect. 

It is because of Helen's trees that I 
weary of the long wooded slopes with 
their undulating dark green waves, the 
trim spruces and glossy hemlocks, an 
indistinguishable assemblage ; they fill 
me with languor like the salons of the 
city. 

I will go and walk among Helen's 
trees, and perchance I shall divine 
which one it was she signified and 
named for me. If I cannot find it, 
surely it will beckon to me with its 
friendly arms. It does not idly re- 
flect itself against the counterfeit sky 
imprisoned in the lake, nor swing in 
every wind, but like her soul it is agi- 
tated by the breath of the celestial 
sphere. 

Come, Helen, sing that song of thine, 
under the beech-tree which thou hast 



8 Prose Idyls 

named for me, for now I have found 
upon the bark the postil of thy hand ; 
and thy band of maidens shall join 
their undersong ; while I, voiceless, 
contemplate with silent scorn, such as 
no other poet ever felt before for his 
own possessions, my herd of unlettered 
oaks and inarticulate pines. 



NIEBAN AND LAUNA 

With the sweetness of a flower that 
has just unfolded itself for the first 
time in the spring of the year, the 
maiden Launa smiled ; and at that 
moment I chanced to stand where her 
smile fell upon me. After that mo- 
ment chance was no more the pro- 
curess of smiles. 

To mortals the destinies appear but 
once, for an instant. In their fleet, 
impalpable passages over the earth 
they enter only portals already opened ; 
but carefully do they close and bar 
them, once entered. 

I lived a thousand years ; I became 
gray as the Theban Apollo. My skin 
was like an ancient palimpsest, and my 
bones rattled like chips upon a floor. 
Launa Probana smiled upon me, and 
I arose from my ruins with the vigor 



io Prose Idyls 

and vivacity of a boy. Such was I, 
Nieban, the companion of Launa, be- 
fore the world was, before the double 
stars had selected their mates ; such 
I continue through the ages. 

Hear me, O gray Theban Apollo ! 
I will tell you of our life upon the 
earth, since thou knowest that before, 
and that which shall be. 

Mortals are not as they seem even 
in the first years. We had knowledge 
even then ; but we had not then, nor 
ever after, the wish to reveal it, no, 
not even to each other ; and we passed 
among other mortals as children need- 
ing instruction and the tuition of the 
elder bards. 

Under the long rows of elms we 
went hand in hand to the schools for 
children ; we stood side by side before 
the magicians appointed to unfold our 
minds ; their charms, their miracles 
could not deceive us. We read from 
the same page that which we already 
knew. If there was anything dark, or 



Nieban and Launa n 

if I became languid from the sum of 
the ignorance continually presupposed 
for us, Launa' s smile restored me ; and 
the same serene light appeared in my 
soul as when I first stood in its path- 
way. 

If there was knowledge, we knew it 
when we arrived at it ; and what we 
learned, O Apollo, from thy chosen 
ones, that we became, Launa first and 
I not long afterwards. Or if there 
were then such things as wisdom and 
beauty beyond the walls that men 
build to confine them, beyond the 
tomes of the sages and the experiences 
of hoary ancestors, these we drank in 
at many a hidden fountain. 

In the morning we gathered flowers ; 
at noontide we exchanged the fruits of 
the earth prepared for each of us. In 
the afternoon, prone upon the hillside 
under the young birches, we sailed 
with the high, translucent cloudlets, 
or sent messages by them to the even- 
ing stars. In secret places we built 



I 2 Prose Idyls 

houses of boughs and roofs of brake, 
not large enough for company, nor 
pleasant enough for more than one 
day. These now, later generations of 
children discover as the seats of a 
remote and extinct civilization. 

Under the low arched bridge we 
waded among the ripples, and under 
them saw our bare feet become as 
large as those of our elders. The 
friendly spiders looked down from the 
roof, and water-flies gave over their 
perpetual gyrations and watched us 
with delight. I carried Launa over 
many a brook at whose depth she pre- 
tended to be affrighted. Did she wish 
to feel her arms around my neck ? 
You know, ye blessed gods, who knew 
the heart of Launa Probana. But I 
knew it not. Clasping her firmly and 
stepping cautiously among the reeds 
and peplis, I felt only the emotion, the 
agitation of a hero. 

Together we explored the further 
side of every stream, hill, wood ; for 



Nieban and Launa 13 

was it not there that the mystery, 
the secret lurked which we were per- 
petually looking for? — the secret which 
only allured us to the next. 

Thus did we come afresh to the ap- 
prehension of the myths of the olden 
times, which penumbrate divine be- 
ings and their thoughts. To us they 
dissembled not, but took us by the 
hand and disclosed to us the arcana of 
forest and waters and mountain pin- 
nacles ; and we became like-minded, 
and held intercourse with such of their 
company as yet retained remembrance 
of their mortal state, doomed for yet 
awhile to the condition of demigods. 
From them we learned to be silent 
and impassive when we approached 
that which was in its inner being di- 
vine. 

Ever as before, this too seemed but 
the intuition of our own souls ; for 
never had we spoken of ourselves to 
each other, while drawing more and 
more near. Thy smile, Launa Pro- 



14 J 'rose Idyls 

bana, smote across rooms, between the 
faces of friends and comrades, over 
fields and waters, through a thousand 
years, and communicated to me the 
whole of life and the path of immortal- 
ity. The bow of thy lips encompassed 
me. And whether our breath made 
frost figures on the same window pane, 
or whether, leaning over the rail of the 
boat, we beheld our faces in the shoul- 
dering waves run into one, we under- 
stood these as the emblem of that 
which was, which had been, and which 
would be forever. 



GRAMMARIAN IN LOVE 

Who knows when he is wholly in 
love ? Not I. My mother said I was 
in love with Candide ; and I believed 
it myself. 

For a long time my mother had 
wished me to find a bride. She said I 
was getting dusty like my books, that 
we both needed some one to brush us 
up and keep us from moths — moths 
she calls them, experienced housewife 
as she is ; she knows not the little 
creature that vermiculates the choicest 
passages in my rarest tomes. Those 
tomes, I was already wedded to them. 

Yet when I beheld Candide's white 
teeth and the rubicund curve of her 
lips, and heard her voice that trebled 
like a bird's, I forgot study. 

Hand in hand we studied nature. 



1 6 Prose Idyls 

Candide's voice trebled like a bird's, 
among flowers, in the groves, over 
brooks and meadows where the cow- 
slip enamels her six sepals and her lux- 
uriant leaves alike. 

How dusty are books ! thought I. 
" Wore it not better done as others 
use?" kept ringing in my ears. 

And Candide's voice trebled like a 
bird's. I heard it now when alone, 
we did not permit each other to 
be alone ; and others — there were 
none ! We indulged ourselves in the 
egoism of two. 

Only there was nature, on which we 
threw ourselves, like the alchemist's 
last projection, and changed all to gold. 

Silent, patient nature ! What met- 
amorphoses hast thou to bear from 
lovers, what flatteries ! Didst thou, 
too, hear Candide's trebling voice and 
believe it one of thine own ? Dost 
thou never weary of the monotonies 
of thine external iterations from bird 
and wind and water and leaves ? And, 
ah me, from thy bar 



Grammarian in Love \J 

Candide trebled on. When she was 
not talking she was singing, and at 
length I could not distinguish one 
from the other. In any case the words 
were of no moment in my ears. I 
heard only a certain music, of which 
I thought I should never tire. Does 
one tire of a street song, filtered down 
from I know not where — the grand 
opera, perhaps ? 

I was the first to hear her voice ; 
it was not the world's yet. And the 
words — we never mind them ; we 
make them to suit the instant emo- 
tion. 

Nevertheless, one evil day I brought 
my bird to book. 

We left nature, her mossy seats and 
pillows, her leafy branches, and bowers 
too large for one, her hilltops, and 
heaven over all, and we sat down in 
chairs — the chairs, alas ! of this un- 
derworld. 

The treble of Candide's voice dimin- 
ished, grew broken, sober, embarrassed. 



1 8 Prose Idyls 

It tried to speak in my language. I 
had had no difficulty in being silent in 
hers. Here now we sat in chairs, de- 
corous like those in other chairs, con- 
ing in something called speech, 
prose, strict, intelligible, the terrible 
dialect of this under-world, which I, 
like a galley slave, am doomed to 
clank about in, while I hear afar off 
the speech of Candide's native realm, 
its long vowels, its words of benedic- 
tion that raise the heart and put reason 
to sleep. Fool that I was ! to think 
that Candide's treble could be confined 
in four walls and a chair, and attested 
bv my learned tomes of ancient and 
uninspired sages. Fool ! that I should 
wish mv humming-bird to alight like 
another, and to speak as my books, 
without solecisms and tautolo. 
What is love but never-ending tautol- 
So much grammar and Candide 
have taught me. But no one had 
taught Candide ; no, not even I. 

Alas ! now the dust settles upon my 



Gram7narian in Love 19 

books and upon me, and my mother is 
hopeless. But Candide goes trebling 
through the world ; she is happy, and 
she will never learn grammar. Would 
that I might again hear her voice, 
though in a solecism. 

I listen ; all is so still here among 
voices that once made such a stir. I 
listen — I hear only the little creatures 
vermiculating the vellum of Philostra- 
tus at his twenty-fourth letter. Ah, 
the epicures ! How well they scent 
the good things ! 



PAIN AND PLEASURE 

We were begotten twins of a mo- 
ther who, having suffered more than 
mortal anguish, expired at our birth 
with excess of joy. 

YVe were separated as soon as we 
were brought forth. Thenceforth pur- 
suing each other through the worlds 
and among the spaces of the most 
distant stars, never have we been re- 
united for a single instant, but where 
one came the other had just departed. 

Well we know each other's trail, 
paved with pearls that once were tears 
and bordered with stems once in 
bloom, undeviating, ever returning 
upon itself ; and our camps are n< 
wanting the presence of one or other 
of us. The signal of departure is the 
al of arrival. 

The monotony of our journey: 



Pain and Pleasure 21 

would be more wearisome, but that as 
guests we are sometimes mistaken one 
for the other. In the house of lovers 
we are often thus confounded, and in 
the chambers of first-born babes. In 
the house of music also the inmates 
are never certain which to call us ; be- 
cause, in truth, under some mysterious 
conditions our natures become inter- 
changeable, and tears and smiles are 
but false criterions. 

In the houses of poets we seldom 
remain long enough at one time to 
be identified. It is through them we 
make our quickest yet most frequent 
flights ; so that if any one should find 
either heralded there, let him not be 
too confident ; it is as likely to be the 
other. But the poets sometimes boast 
that we are indistinguishable, and give 
us equal welcome, equal praise. 

There is only one abode we avoid — 
where more than mortal fortitude is 
professed ; where hang our pretended 
portraits in a portico devoted to mod- 



22 Prose Idyls 

erate pleasures and majestic pains. 
The Stoics believe not in us, and we 
reciprocate their skepticism. For the 
time is not yet when men can know 
themselves without a knowledge of 
both of us. 

Nature makes the lives of most ani- 
mals brief as a compensation for all 
that they endure from their masters, 
and also because they can make little 
use of the experience gained of us. 

It is I, the twin brother of Pleasure, 
that dictate this memorial by the 
hand of my intimate. I surrender for 
some years the lives of children and 
many youths and maids to my brother, 
knowing that in due season they will 
be subjected to me. If by chance 
they escape, I await the moment when 
such blessed beings, departing hence, 
will leave me the procession which 
follows them to the tomb. I claim 
tribute in the last and usually in the 
first breath of all that exists. Thus 
everywhere and at all times is our 



Pain and Pleasure 23 

sovereignty divided in a just divi- 
sion. 

Men testify that this is not the 
truth, and that some are always my 
victims and others the life-long favor- 
ites of my brother. They know not 
that where the seed of one is planted, 
it bears not its own fruit but that of 
the other. As night follows the day, 
as tides ebb and flow, as season gives 
place to season, so do we follow each 
other in the life of man that he may 
be fitted for final repose. 

But well do I know that I am mor- 
tal, and that at last I shall be over- 
taken, dissolved, and lost in the glo- 
rious being of my immortal brother. 



THE CRACKED BELL 

It is a breach of manners to enter 
late a Protestant service. At a Cath- 
olic you drop on your knees, you are 
forgiven, you stand where you are, or 
go boldly forward to your seat. 

In my village the Protestant bell 
was cracked ; it did not send its call as 
far as was its wont, and the punctual 
Margaret was late. Others began to 
be; in short, it came about that all were 
late, even the clergyman. For on the 
Sabbath no one trusts his own watch ; 
he waits to hear the bell. It is the 
Sentinel of Heaven. 

But it was cracked, and souls were 
in danger. 

As if in sympathy with the bell, its 
tower was rent ; howbeit, the bell fell 
not ; there it hung almost by a splinter. 

They rang it no more ; some said it 



The Cracked Bell 25 

would widen the crack, others that it 
would bring down the tower, even to 
toll it. 

People now came to church accord- 
ing to the time of their several watches 
and clocks; some midway of the ser- 
vices, some almost at the close; others 
did not come at all. It was the fault 
of the bell ; yes, every one said it was 
the fault of the bell. 

By some strange accident the mind 
of the clergyman was beclouded and 
changed ; he knew not what to think 
or speak for fear of leading his flock 
away from heaven. He no longer de- 
livered with authority simple and im- 
pressive precepts. They were colored 
and lengthened by various beautiful 
but uncertain lights. 

The forlorn people now came to 
church according to their several in- 
clinations ; some from habit, some for 
a walk, some with nothing else to do ; 
most came not at all. It was the fault 
of the bell ; yes, all confessed it was 



26 Prose Idyls 

the fault of the bell in the beginning, 
and now another evil had befallen, the 
clergyman's voice, that, too, gave an 
uncertain sound. 

An old woman, who had enjoyed 
and suffered the entire fortunes of life, 
continued to come at the appointed 
hour. She was partly deaf ; she could 
not have heard the bell, even when 
not cracked. She did not know that 
it hung by a splinter. She was sim- 
ple, and though in a front pew, she 
could not have understood the subtle 
doubts of her clergyman ; she only 
came to worship God ! 

And when alone of all the congre- 
gation she was left the sole worshiper, 
the bell suddenly sounded forth its 
ancient clear call, the rent tower 
closed, the clergyman himself forgot 
his doubts. 



THE MIND CURES. 

It would be well, said the sage to 
me one day, to go to college ; it would 
be better to go round the world ; but 
best of all to go look everything thou 
meetest with in the face and ask of 
it some question that is in thine own 
heart. If thou art patient, but withal 
importunate, then after many years 
thou wilt find the answers written 
everywhere, in a pre-Cadmean alpha- 
bet — such were his very words — 
over all waste places and in the dust 
under thy feet. 

Thus spoke the sage, and many 
other things of similar import, speak- 
ing like the Pythoness across the cen- 
turies, regardless of age, time, and 
circumstances. 

As I had gone clandestinely, had 
hired a chaise and traveled twenty 



28 Prose Idyls 

miles at the expense of all my sub- 
stance to consult the oracle, I held it 
to be mine, and I treasured it up for 
manv years without comprehending 
it. Vet generally I felt it, like Soc- 
rates' demon, restraining me from 
many things. I know not how, but the 
lofty words and their very vagueness 
elevated the soul and made it expect- 
ant of wonderful revelations. If I 
sought honor, ease, riches, love, some- 
thing said, Seek them not ! and at 
length they palled before a life, not 
mine, but whose existence I could 
divine. As the astronomer knew 
an unseen star by the perturbations 
of some other visible, so I conjectured 
of a higher life by the agitations, the 
attractions and repulsions of this. 

Thus did the sage and the master of 
many centuries cure the uncertain, 
adolescent mind ere yet it had reached 
to follies or prevented the entrance of 
wisdom. 



CREATION 

I have long envied the sculptor who, 
through extreme fondness, brought a 
soul into his statue. It is wonderful, 
but not improbable. All good statues 
desire to come to life. It happens 
often. It happens as often as there 
is a conjunction of genius with the 
requisite skill. Then is given life and 
immortality under the material tissues, 
under the semblances which art invents 
in marble, on paper and on canvas. 

I also, like Pygmalion, have wor- 
shiped the work of my own hands ; 
and that which I passionately loved, 
working upon it with the whole force 
of my nature, in seclusion, without am- 
bition, without emulation or rewards, 
has often become a living thing, and 
returned with gratitude and affection 
the effort or the prayer which gave 



30 Prose Idyls 

to it release from the prison house of 
matter. 

Thus have I surrounded myself with 
a family of children. The great artist 
has need of no other instrument than 
his imagination. What he imagines 
leaps into existence full-formed, only 
requiring nurture and culture, which 
the dexterity of his art is already pre- 
pared to supply. 

There they stand or sit, my children, 
obedient to my most inexpressible 
thought, until I give them their free- 
dom by some magic word, for which I 
and they alike await in silence and 
expectancy. Then at length I ex- 
claim, "Awake, advance, live!" 

But it is also true that I am incom- 
moded by many half-formed, inchoate, 
yes, even mal-formed beings. They 
will neither allow themselves to be re- 
manded to the void, to nothingness, 
nor will they take the one step which 
I urge, which I demand with loud 
voice and upraised, threatening quill, 



Creation 3 1 

the one step from seeming to being, 
from sleep and dream to animation 
and self - existence. There they sit 
dumb in the corner, like a guest who 
has been somehow invited, but whom 
you know not how to entertain. The 
worst of it is that they take up too 
much room in a house so small as 
mine. 

Shall I also confess that sometimes 
even those creations which have at- 
tained to a life of their own, and are 
capable of mobility, will not separate 
themselves from my household, but 
hover about and afflict me with terrible 
tedium and melancholy ? Is it possible 
they can find no other home, that no 
one will receive and adopt them ? 

If so, they should not have lived ; 
for what is the good of a family of 
children whom you cannot send out 
into the world to better it, and per- 
chance themselves, but who must 
always remain in the nest, unfledged, 
with no note, no voice, no song, strictly 
their own ? 



POETA XASCITUR 

Not to-day, nor yesterday, but in an 
unremembered time, lived a man who 
was an unconscious poet. He pos- 
ted also, and much in the same way. 
a great estate ; nevertheless he dwelt 
in one little corner of it. 

Far away, on the extreme confines 
of his domain, arose the peak of a lofl 
mountain. It was so distant and so 
blue that he thought it was a part of 
the sky. He never dreamed it was 
his ; he never attempted to explore 
the summit ; least of all did it occur to 
him to make any use of his Parnassian 
mountain pastures. Others herded 
their fat flocks there, and piped and 
sang after the manner of furtunate and 
happy shepherds. 

All the while he enjoyed contem- 
plating it ; that alone made him happy 



Poeta Nascitur 33 

and blest ; made him dear to all folks ; 
and more beloved by his friends and 
the gods of his own mountain. 

No one knew he was a poet, al- 
though all who had intercourse with 
him immediately became poets. No 
one who saw him plodding about his 
obscure little corner suspected that 
his estate inclosed the very summit 
of the mountain, so distant and so 
blue that it was scarcely distinguish- 
able from the heavens. 

Down deep in his soul, behind a 
thin but impenetrable veil, hid the 
poet ; and every one went on believing 
he knew all about the gentle and 
friendly neighbor dwelling contentedly 
in his little corner under the high 
stars. 



THE BGOIS 

In those impitiable e;.es I beheld 
no retraction of her disdainful, taci- 
turn words ; and methought ur. 
purple fillet shot forth little resilient 
tongues of flames, like those that es- 
cape from the wheels of an electric 
car. 

Beware ! they seemed to hiss, those 
viperous, sleided tongues of poison- 
&re Beware I could not, and I 
would not And that which threat- 
ened to destroy enticed me on with 
threefold enchantment 

e devil casts out another in the 
infernal comedy of my life. For I no 
longer breathed the bacchanal air of 
self-flatter)' and of an egoism high as 
the dome of the s ich I 

seemed to touch, where I neither per- 
mitted nor perceived any otlu 
ence than my own. 



The Egoists 35 

She, it was she who had dethroned 
me, and filled up the universe with 
herself and her sorceries. Thus thrust 
out mv heaven, more false than that 
fabled of brass, I fell — fell into the sea, 
the insatiable sea of her being ; until 
with the surrender of self-love I was 
abandoned to a soul so like my own in 
its egoism, but being woman's so far 
surpassing man's as the subtlety of her 
nature exceeds his, that I was at last 
destroyed by it. Yet I lived on, con- 
scious, unresistingly conscious, that in 
slavery to her I was ministering to the 
same devil that formerly possessed 
myself. 

Yes ; in the infernal comedy of false 
love there are two players, but a single 
part. 



A REMINISCENCE OF VIRGIL 

I opened the grammar at the wrong 
place. Surely the exception was there; 
but I could not find the one that Mas- 
ter Virgil has so adroitly slipped into 
the verse, just to plague a schoolboy. 

Let it go, said I ; it will come in 
some other fellow's passage. 

" Sir, you may sit ! you do not un- 
derstand it ;" and the great Professor's 
eyes, raised just above his spectacles, 
dropped back behind them again like 
two bullets, as he called up from the 
bench of trembling boys the next pro- 
tagonist. 

What a bad thing is the Latin gram- 
mar ! 

He had also to sit down, over- 
whelmed with shame. 

This time the Professor did not 
speak ; he only raised his eyes above the 



A Reminiscence of Virgil 37 

square, gold-bowed spectacles, and re- 
fracting their powerful dioptric glasses 
methought I detected a faint line of 
blue light, like a strand of fading rain- 
bow, or the nether fringe of a thunder 
cloud, under which the horizon strug- 
gles against extinction. 

This time, but more emphatically, 
he dropped them like two bullets ; and 
the champion of the class, he who 
knew every exception, fell back into 
his seat as if the battle were lost. 

The battle was lost ; we were in 
confusion and retreat ; the little we 
knew fled through the windows, rushed 
out of the doors, ran up the chimney, 
and the fourth book of the ^Eneid was 
lost, buried deeper than vanquished 
Troy. 

What then ! did not Master Virgil 
compose those beautiful caesuras to 
discipline us in grammar — that we 
might become expert grammarians ? 

But for all that I loved Master Vir- 
gil. I loved him when I read the 



38 Prose Idyls 

Bucolics under a tree, and also when I 
recited his heroics to my brothers, the 
drapers and tanners. 

Ah, you will divine why ; I did not 
construe them very well, and I had 
forgotten paradigms and exceptions, 
and most of all that most erudite of 
grammatistical Professors who threw 
out of the window the flowers of the 
^Eneid. 

For all that, I felt only the happi- 
ness of shepherds and shepherdesses ; 
the Saturnian age and the sufferings of 
heroes. 

I forgot even short syllables and 
long, and those voluptuous words and 
blushing tropes which nibbed such a 
salacious pen for Montaigne, as he am- 
bled up and clown his sixteen-paced 
tower. 



THE BIRD SANG 

A little bird sang to me from her 
gilded cage, hung in the top of the 
window. 

She sang, but I could not catch her 
words ; notwithstanding, as in some 
strange human speech, half knowing 
what it wishes to say, so I knew not 
the words of the little songster, but I 
comprehended her meaning. 

She sang, and this was her song : 
" Water and seeds have I enough ; and 
a fig and a pale green lettuce leaf ; a 
hoop to swing, and one above another 
three perches ; on one I sleep and on 
one I eat and on this I sing. But, 
ah me ! my cage is so round, and I 
never come by the end of it. Round 
and round and still the same ! Never 
a corner, never a covert from observa- 
tion ; never shade nor recess whither 



4: Prose Id 

I may fly and hide — I who love seclu- 
sion and sometimes not to be seen, 
sn I sing. 

u There is no place of retreat, save 
when I put my head under my v. 
and dream that I am alone. I should 
a square ca^e, whose limits 
would not seem so hop. . .nd mo- 
notonous as this wearisome circle ; or 
one like many-storied houses with lock 
and curtain ; or as the dog's kennel, 
where he sleeps and ruminates ; or 
like that of my brother, the caged 
squirrel, that has a cave in which, if 
he only imagines he hides himself, he 
seems happy. 

" But this inclosure — is it meant to 
resemble your world, to simulate free- 
dom and be still a prison ? " 

Then I pondered ; and I answered 
the song of the little bird as much as 
I could : " No, little bird ; thy song is 
sweet, and sweet even thy complaint 
But there are no more any corners in 
the world ; no more any seclusions ; no 



The Bird Sang 41 

more any privacies. Alas ! the world 
was created round like thy cage, al- 
though not in its present rotundity ; 
but every day it grows rounder. There 
was a time when it was even flat, and 
men of old days walked to the end of 
it and touched the sky. O happy men ! 
But now all is seen, all without moving 
is revealed ; there is no longer any 
secret place. As through the bars of 
thy gilded cage, we peer into each 
other's unfenceless world. The human 
eye has become akin to God's. There 
is no more any escape for thee and 
me. As thou puttest thy head under 
thy wing as a last refuge from sight, 
so do I withdraw my soul only from 
the gaze of the world. 

" My cage is round and open on all 
sides like thine. Sometimes, too, it is 
gilded ; sometimes it is black as the 
bars at the entrance of tombs. But al- 
ways it is on all sides like thine ; like 
the earth round and round ; and like 
the earth worn slowly down, every- 



42 Prose Idyls 

thing that dares thrust itself beyond 
the indomitable circle. And evermore 
equality, monotony, mediocrity, pub- 
licity, rejoice over their conquests. 

" Like the spheres, we touch but do 
not meet ; there is no longer need of 
meeting, since all are all alike and all 
is visible, as in a house of glass ; and 
windows are set in the inmost man- 
sions of men. My dearest friend al- 
ready knows what I am about to say 
to her ; she has divined it, she has said 
it ! We know each other so well ! all 
know all. Youth knows as much as 
age, and age knows no more. The 
world is round and rounder, and all 
things grow plain. Light irradiates 
the invisible, the mysterious, the vi- 
sionary. Color has faded away from the 
human panorama, crowded with etio- 
lated cosmopolites. 

"Thou dear illusionist, wonder-eyed, 
credulous, singing gladsome strains of 
gods and heroes to their progeny, the 
men of ancient days, go hence ; thy 



The Bird Sang 43 

world is broken, there is no room for 
thee. 

"And thou, little prisoner in thy 
gilded cage, sing thy song and thy 
plaint ; and when thou wouldst be 
alone, put thy head beneath thy wing, 
as I withdraw my soul, my soul only, 
from the ever-advancing myrmidons." 



THE MADONNA 

I was standing before Murillo's Ma- 
donna. Twice, have I traveled afar to 
see it. This was the second time. 

I stood now a long time before the 
Madonna, trying hard to raise the vi- 
sion of my soul where I might look 
down into her upturned eyes. She 
would not suffer it, although I raised 
myself to the pinnacle of heaven. 

Then I said, conscious of my just 
repulse, " Thou art well worthy to be 
the Mother of a God ! " 

I turned at the echo of my words, 
but they died away along the sid< 
the gallery and from behind man}' ad- 
mirable pictures. 

Silence is better in this presence, 
thought I. 

Once more I turned my gaze upon 
the Madonna's face. 



The Madonna 45 

But now, letting my eyes wander, I 
saw other faces in the painting, cher- 
ubs, angels of infancy, nascent forms, 
from which the promised God was to 
be chosen. 

Even as I thought this I heard their 
sweet infantine tones imploring the 
expectant Mother to be taken to her 
embrace. 

Then knew I why those eyes up- 
turned to heaven, beyond mortal re- 
sponse ; and why those hands clasped 
tightly her bosom, as yet clasping no- 
thing. 

For they were appealing to the 
Lord of Heaven, those looks, those 
arms, not for her own choice, but his. 

And as I looked now steadfastly in 
a new knowledge, the lot was cast, 
the choice made. 

Under her arms was the Child, and 
her eyes looked down into mine and 
into those of all the world, filling them 
with joy. 



MARCH MEETING 

O happy days of the March town- 
meeting, ere the boy is a man and a 
maker of laws ! Happy days ! when 
one goes to the polls, but does not 
vote. This theme, at least, was never 
before attempted in song. 

Come, teach me the measure, muse 
of Ascra and the Catonian farm. For 
never could I in a straight course 
round the stake of the sonnet fourteen 
times and barely reach the goal ; nor 
with my rustic lyre swing in song like 
a bird from tree to tree without once 
flapping a heavy wing ; nor yet could 
my short arm wield the hvpermeters 
of Walt Whitman, that stretch across 
the page like a prairie furrow. 

Not Athens, nor Alexandria, nor 
Lutetiacan teach me ; but my masters 
shall come from Heotian ploughlands, 



March Meeting 47 

from oldest Aryan fields, the wattled 
Saxon acre, the stone walls and red 
houses of New England. 

Come, then, all ye rural muses that 
sit so prim and plain on the roofs and 
belfries of all the little town-houses 
and meeting-houses of my native land : 
come ! and I will sing the song of free- 
dom learned on jewsharp and whistle, 
turned now to triumphant trumpet and 
drum, while I, a white-handed poet, am 
proud to march with the myrmidons 
of democracy. But chiefly my voice is 
heard in the March town-meeting and 
in the annals of my island home. 
There, like Ulysses, I have ever cared 
more for Penelope than fame, and all 
my nurture was derived from the 
school, the farm and the town- 
meeting. 

We played about the houses of free- 
dom ; we heard the voices within ; we 
saw the stern faces of our fathers as 
they went to and fro. We entered 
the aisles and listened. Leaning on 



48 Prose Idyls 

rail and post we beheld the little state 
in motion. Speech was brief ; it was 
awkward and slow ; intention and ac- 
tion were clear as the noon and strong 
as mountains. The fathers arose ; 
with one upward swing of their hands 
they made schools, churches, the 
pound, the train-band, the house for 
the poor. Then for a year they 
rested ; then they assembled again ; 
and after many years the great King 
and all the world knew the meaning 
of the town-meeting. But too late ! 
We too were kings ! 

On the second Tuesday of March 
we make ridiculous the pomposities 
and bombast of senates and forums. 
We open the meeting without cere- 
monial, and before the day is done we 
have regulated the calendar of the 
year, and gone home to live it out. 
The recusants, although they swear 
and scoff, will abide by it. 

The boys play about the doors of 
the house of freedom until it is time 



March Meeting 49 

for them to enter and take the places 
allotted them below their elders, and 
learn to vote and to act. But until 
that time they play about the door. 
And on that March Tuesday, the great 
secular Sabbath of the yeomen, with 
twenty-five cents, the savings of a 
whole winter, the boy is richer and 
happier than when he owns a farm 
and yokes his own oxen. For a month 
before he deliberates on what he shall 
buy — for twenty-five cents will buy 
so many things when one is twelve 
years old ! Not until the very day 
and after his arrival does he settle 
on three buns, some sticks of striped 
and twisted candy, and an imitation 
cigar made of dark sugar with a fiery 
end. At the other end of that cigar 
he mocks the jaunty manners of elder 
boys. He swaggers and pretends to 
spit. A red and tingling ear reminds 
him that he is only twelve. He eats 
a bun and is himself again. 

When the day is done, the year is 



5<D Prose Idyls 

over for him. A few more such years 
and the boy is twenty-one ; he re- 
ceives his majority steers, the gift of 
his father, and a freedom suit, the gift 
of his mother, spun, woven and sewed 
with her own hands. Then he votes. 
He sits with dignity through the pro- 
ceedings of the town -meeting. As 
yet it is indecorous for him to take 
an active part. He silently votes ; he 
restrains the speech of his deep, atten- 
tive mind. In time he openly partici- 
pates in the discussion, and he comes 
into office, rising through lower grades 
to be at last a selectman. 

He who can boast a selectman as 
an ancestor has a right to his pride, 
and may quarter his arms with princes 
and pontiffs. For my part I cannot. 
A road-surveyor is as high as I can 
My lather, mighty man with scythe 
and axe, wrote a fair round hand, plain 
as print, which was thought to qualify 
him to be the town clerk ; and my 
grandfather was celebrated for doing 



March Meeting 51 

hard sums with chalk on the backs 
of bellows. But luck passed them by; 
and I am but the plebeian dregs of a 
road-surveyor and rustic arithmetician. 
Bran and meal come off the same cob. 

Yet humble as we are who only 
vote others into office, we know the 
"Town's Mind." This phrase, in- 
vented by our forefathers, shows their 
closeness to their own affairs. It is a 
drop from an imperial cup ; it is the 
large, assumptive " We " of kings and 
Elohims, brought hither and written 
over the portals of all dwellings, 
churches, school-houses, town-houses, 
of the smallest community. 

Wonderful is it how well we can 
manage our own affairs — we who are 
not lawyers or statesmen ; we who 
know little of grammar, the nomi- 
native case or the previous question. 
Four or five figures is the maximum 
of our arithmetic and our expenses. 
All this we do in plain houses of 
wood, without architecture or the 
statue of any god. 



52 Prose Idyls 

But the God who watches over 
plain, brave men is not far off, and 
to Him I dedicate my song ; and I 
invoke his power to preserve this low- 
roofed citadel of the free. 



THE STATUE OF MY FRIEND 

More precious than fine gold was 
the man whom I called my dearest 
friend. 

When he died I was too poor to 
bury him in that state which he de- 
served and which I desired. Nor 
could I afford an artist to perpetuate 
in marble or upon canvas his figure, 
glorious as a shaft of sunlight when it 
strikes the highest dome of Bagdad or 
Damascus. Yet I feared to lose him 
if I trusted only to the slowly fading 
tablet of memory ; for fade alike the 
dearest and most indifferent images, 
and the misery of life is that trifles in- 
voluntarily present themselves in the 
memory, after some lapse of time, with 
as much vividness as those things 
which we desire should alone remain 
in our hearts. 



54 Prose Idyls 

I resolved to keep my friend just as 
he was in life, as I could not afford a 
fitting tomb for him, nor retain him 
in marble nor yet upon canvas. 

I betook myself to my ancient ac- 
quaintance, the alchemist, Ben Has- 
sam, and confiding to him the condi- 
tion of my purse and my wishes, he, 
out of friendliness and sympathy, 
freely offered his arts, which would 
enable me to keep possession of my 
friend to the end of my days. 

"Yes," said Ben Hassam, "I will 
preserve for you the bodily form in 
every lineament, slightly darkened in 
color, but do not expect me to bring 
back the spirit. Allah has now 
emptied that into some other recep- 
tacle. Mortals must be content, when 
friends take the long journey in the 
caravans that cross the unknown 
desert, with the vessel which onee 
held the wine of life. 

■ But come, let us proceed with our 
labor, first offering a prayer lor our 



The Statue of My Friend 55 

friend and then for ourselves." Which 
having done, Ben Hassam prepared 
all things necessary for the device of 
rendering immortal so much of my 
friend as was spared to me after the 
butterfly had ascended from his lips. 

The processes of Ben Hassam were 
all, save one, simple, and all effective ; 
I watched my friend issue from each 
successive stage nearer to life, nearer 
to himself in his most ideal condition 
of lovely form and perfect vigor. At 
every step I could hardly refrain from 
embracing him. 

First we paint him with nitrate of 
silver ; then with a vapor of white 
phosphorus render his skin dark and 
lustrous. We then dip him in an elec- 
tric bath, depositing all over his splen- 
did body a fine new cuticle, an epider- 
mis of iridescent copper. This was 
the last of the chemical processes. 
The profound alchemical secrets of 
Ben Hassam which I could not pene- 
trate now exerted themselves ; but it 



56 Prose Idyls 

was obvious that a layer of life-like 
integument completely enwrapped 
what was only a moment ago a poor 
wasted cadaver : so that, like an athlete 
fresh from the strigil and the bath, he 
appears able once more to endure the 
shocks and outrages of the world. He 
feels no blow ; the stroke of dagger 
pierces him not. 

It was now more than ever almost 
impossible to refrain from crying out 
and falling into his arms. 

Only one more operation remained 
to complete the eternal preservation 
of the mortal part of my friend. In 
this the wonderful feature of Ben Has- 
sam's skill revealed itself. All the 
previous efforts had been exercised to 
render the body externally not only as 
in life, but also impervious to every 
element. I felt that no blow, wind, 
rain, sun, frost, nor time itself could 
work him injury. I did not rev 
with fire. What was my amazement 
to sec, therefore, Ben Hassam proceed 



The Statue of My Friend 57 

to incinerate my friend and consume 
every vestige of the internal mechan- 
ism of man without doing the least 
harm to the statue itself. This was 
the final device — a cleanly and com- 
plete exenteration, and the grosser 
portions departed whence they came. 

At length all is over. We refresh 
ourselves with a little wine and a few 
olives from Ben Hassam's single tree, 
while we contemplate the work of our 
hands, the now perfect and imperish- 
able statue of my friend, wrought not 
as others from stone and ivory, but 
from his own body, with feelings, I 
dare say, akin to those of the greatest 
artists. 



A CHILD OF GOD 

She was poor, but there were others 
poorer. She thought herself rich be- 
cause she had something she could do 
without, could share. 

It is only the poor who can cross 
the road where Lazarus lies, yes, who 
would dare the great gulf between 
Abraham's bosom, and the rich man's 
thirst. Over there in the Land of 
Misery is a half crust, never a whole 
one. The poor know that it is still 
possible to divide what has already 
been halved or quartered to them. 
This the rich see not. They give what 
is left. They never share the uncut 

ie stepped lightly across, alv. 
with a gift. She called it food, pi 
of cloth, pins, a little thread, saved 
from the bastings of the garments 



A Child of God 59 

she sewed for those who made for- 
tunes thereby ; a half loaf, which she 
learned to divide as others learn to 
increase and multiply. 

Her gift was in none of these ; it 
was herself she gave. You must ask 
him who receives the value of the gift, 
not the giver. Over there they never 
mentioned what she brought to them, 
but they passed it by and spoke of 
her 1 and they called her " The Child 
of God." 

How did they know such good 
words ? how invent so majestic a 
name ? 

It was not the hunger of the stom- 
ach, nor the cold of the shoulders, nor 
the overwork for merciless wages to 
which she ministered that most 
affected them. For these, the com- 
mon hand of charity, the dole of a 
thousand agencies, sufficed. It was 
herself in her kindness, which they 
distinguished from every other sort 
of almsgiving. Neither cold nor star- 



60 Prose Idyls 

ration nor merciless wages had extin- 
guished in their bosoms the image of 
goodness, and they divined its bright 
reflection in her whom they named 
"The Child of God." 



THE FAITH CURER 

Once I knew a Child of God, and I 
told her story to those who had ears to 
hear. - 

Another one I knew, but she did 
not bear the same name. There was 
no one to give her a title, for her work 
was done in secret, moved by the pity 
she felt for sufferers, whom she had no 
earthly means of compassionating. 

It was a long way up to her one 
room, nearer the sky than the earth. 
She was a tailoress, in the days when 
there was such a trade. She had no 
husband or child. She liked not men 
save when they were in distress, and 
she could not bear to be reminded of 
them at any other time. This was the 
reason why she preferred to cut and sew 
boys' clothing. That of men with its 
superserviceable pockets and flaps and 



62 Prose Idyls 

ever multiplying button holes gave her 
thoughts a disagreeable and sometimes 
almost disdainful turn. For little boys 
she had a tenderness ; she stitched her 
heart into their short breeches and 
round jackets. She loved to see them 
when she took their suits home to 
try on. 

Her room had nothing in it to de- 
scribe beyond a cot, a table, a Bible, 
and the few implements of her trade. 
Her life seemed as narrow and unem- 
bellished as her rooms. She had never 
known those good words M take, have 
and keep." There was nothing to envy, 
nothing to admire ; there was every- 
thing in her life one would be thank- 
ful not to have in his. 

Yet there was somewhat there one 
did not see with the eyes. It was a 
thing which received its name and is 
most frequently mentioned by the un- 
happy ; it was Happiness. 

How had she with no earthly means 
acquired it ? 



The FaitJi Curer 63 

The good God had come down from 
his throne and had given it to her. 
For He had found in her heart that 
by which He tempers his sovereignty 
over all worlds — compassion. 

She, with no one to pity her, pitied 
every one in distress. For all such 
she knelt and prayed to God in secret. 
She knew that He was her friend and 
had been all her life and could not re- 
fuse her. 

For whomsoever she heard of that 
was sick, afflicted, in misfortune, in 
shame, she went to God, as a mediator, 
for compassion. In her humble attic, 
the ante-chamber of Heaven, unknown 
to the sufferers themselves, she brought 
their woes and their burdens, their 
sins and their dangers, and made them 
known to the great Healer in nightly 
precatory vigils. 

She was heard ; all that she asked 
was granted and thousands were healed, 
comforted, their sins covered. But they 
never knew how it happened. They 



64 Prose Idyls 

thought it was the physician, or chance, 
or conscience ; or more often they never 
thought at all. 

Forasmuch as she never remem- 
bered to ask anything for herself, the 
good God filled her heart with Hap- 
piness. 



THE QUEEN'S HANDKERCHIEF 

Bordered with the finest Mechlin 
lace, which a fair Fleming wrought, 
bending over her cushion for three 
years, and with a centre of lawn tenu- 
ous as woven wind, the Queen, darling 
of all courts, having a hundred lovers 
at her feet, lifts the dainty fabric to 
her eyes and moistens it with six tears. 
The Queen, placed above mortal ills, 
on a throne that commands the uni- 
verse, suffers and actually weeps. 

It is a mystery ; no one knows why 
she suffers ; no one dares to comfort 
so great a personage ; and she con- 
tinues to dampen with tears the centre 
of her handkerchief, careful not to spoil 
the border of such rare and costly 
Mechlin lace. 

It would seem as if her Majesty had 
a heart, for she is still young and she 



66 Prose Idyls 

weeps ; and where else can tears come 
from save the heart ? Cannot queens 
have all they wish for, and must they 
weep and suffer like other women ? 

But the Queen is lonely. Amid her 
hundred lovers she is solitary and has 
not one companion. They are puppets 
who surround her ; respect, deference, 
reverence, the whole aulic pageant 
makes a desert about her. At other 
times she seems to herself on a moun- 
tain height, which no one may climb, 
and from which she cannot descend. 
At night it is even more dreary ; for 
then she is ceremoniously disrobed 
and put to bed, and left to herself she 
weeps as if her heart would break, like 
a common distressed girl. 

There is no doubt the Queen has a 
heart, but she has found that it is not 
her own. Such a discovery disconcerts 
even ordinary women. What can a 
queen do ? 

Is it any comfort to be able to wipe 
away tears with a beautiful Mechlin 



The Queen s Handkerchief 67 

lace handkerchief, small and soft as a 
summer cloudlet ? 

The Queen has thought of some- 
thing better to do with her handker- 
chief. She walks alone in her gardens. 
It is May and the earliest flowers 
are in blossom ; not those flaming and 
profuse ones of June, but the white, 
the sensitive pale blue and faint pink, 
bearing upon frail stems delicate co- 
rollas that shut at a cloud and open at 
a sun-ray. 

The Prince walks there too, grave, 
almost melancholy. 

The Queen wanders toward him ; 
her heart palpitates faster and faster 
as he approaches to salute her. She 
drops her handkerchief of Mechlin lace 
as she bends her sovereign eyes upon 
him. He stoops and offers it to her. 
She seems not to notice, to see ; she 
will not take it, and she passes on to 
her ivy seat under the immemorial 
oak of her ancestors. She gathers, ere 
she seats herself, a bunch of violets 



68 Prose Idyls 

and snowdrops which she pulls to 
pieces as the Prince follows and seats 
himself beside her. 

Doubtless queens and princes make 
love, when they love, like others. 
Are there not smiles and silences and 
tears ? 

Doubtless only a prince could be so 
extravagant as to wipe away the happy 
tear-drops from the cheek of a queen 
with the very border of her Mechlin 
lace handkerchief. Even the Queen 
elf no longer cares what happens 
to it. It has had its day. its tears of 
pain and joy. But the Prince trea- 
sures it as a souvenir all his blessed 
life. 



THE MASK VEIL 

A DREAM STORY 

It is objected that the connections 
of incident and persons in dreams are 
often too grotesque and inconsequen- 
tial to warrant any interpretation, either 
as recoveries of a past or shadow- 
ings of a future life. But this morn- 
ing, awaking from a long dream and 
remembering it distinctly and consid- 
ering it with particular care, I see no 
greater want of connection, at least, 
than in the conversation of four per- 
sons, of whom I was one, which soon 
after took place at the breakfast-table. 
For half an hour these four persons 
conversed, speaking now of this, now 
of that, and running on from one 
subject to another, with no obvious 
sequence. In truth, the glancing, 



JO Prose Idyls 

unconscious associations to whose ob- 
servation I chanced to have my mind 
drawn on that particular occasion, curi- 
ously resembled the occurrences of the 
dream from which I was fresh. What 
took place in my mind in dreaming 
was not more unreasonable and dis- 
connected, in fact, very nearly repre- 
sented the movements of the mental 
machinery of the other members of the 
sociable quartet at the breakfast-table. 

N jw I will tell my dream ; but I 
forewarn the reader that it is not 
sational, ghostly, prophetic, nor even 
farcical. It cost me some tears in the 
dreaming, which may have been those 
suppressed ones of the experience it 
seemed to adumbrate. 

In the evening, before I slept, I had 
been listening to music, and had been 
myself singing in some part songs, 
taking, as was my custom, the baritone 
passages. Among the instrumental 
pieces that had been played was the 
popular score of the Carnival of Yen- 



The Mask Veil 71 

ice. It made no particular impression 
upon me, although no music goes un- 
heard where I am. A hand organ 
stops me on the street, and a street 
band will delay me for quarter of an 
hour. It is true, walking on, I have 
a rather sheepish feeling, as if I had 
not held myself up to a standard of 
musical dignity, or had indulged a 
somewhat low taste. 

As I have said, I had been singing 
as well as listening. Every one has 
his own especial habit or custom of 
doing certain things on retiring and 
rising. Some must have a nightcap 
jorum ; others eat ; others read them- 
selves into repose before their hour of 
forgetfulness. I have a friend who 
loves at the end of the evening to 
talk of ghosts and immortality. This 
which seems to soothe him disturbs 
me. My friend, however, is the most 
restless of men, and nothing less than 
a ghost and the thought of eternity 
are adequate to bring him, even after 



J2 Prose Idyls 

laborious days, into a state of repose 
and moments of silence ; silence, which 
generally frightens and perturbs him 
as it does some children. As for my- 
self, music enters me most sweetly into 
the realm of sleep and dreams, and 
the hopes and plans of the morrow. 
Under its influence I feel more power- 
fully every human attachment. I love 
my friends better, and my life. I plan 
noble deeds, and a perfected world 
seems more possible. It flatters me 
that all is well ; that there is some 
power round about us greater than 
ourselves, which softly disperses even- 
fear. 

I sing merely to entertain myself 
and my family, who are not severe 
critics of the science of music, of 
which I know nothing. For me it is 
merely the expression of feeling, when 
it passes beyond, to complex ideas, I 
cannot follow. Having used a good 
many words in the course of my life, 
and never finding them very faithful 



The Mask Veil 73 

pictures of the thing in my mind, it 
is a boon to discover a vehicle that 
expresses the inmost emotion — to 
yourself if not to others. 

Ah, that is sometimes the charm 
of it, that you can pour forth the full 
heart and never another is the wiser. 
You can safely sing the secret which 
you cannot speak. Music is Mercury's 
invisible cloak; and it takes up and 
carries on the movements of the soul 
when language and thinking falter. 

Having sung out of my heart an 
otherwise inexpressible emotion, I 
went to bed and fell into a deep sleep, 
in which I dreamed that I was in 
Venice. It was not Carnival time. 
Still the sounds of the piece of music 
I had just heard — the Carnival of Ven- 
ice — were somehow present, and a 
sort of accompaniment to all that tran- 
spired. This was certainly curious, that 
the mere name of a piece of music 
should transport me to Venice and the 
music itself all the while go sounding 



74 Prose idyls 

on. Yet there I certainly was, in my 
old quarters, the second floor of an 
ancient, decayed palace on an unfre- 
quented canal. The large room in 
which I seemed to be sitting was 
rather bare of furniture, and at that 
instant two chairs only were visible, 
one of which I occupied, the other a 
lady, veiled. Soon another chair mys- 
teriously appeared as a third person 
entered the room. 

But I have not explained who the 
second person besides myself was, and 
with whom I was talking. It was a 
lady whom I had nut seen for a very 
long time, and whom I had no expec- 
tation, and little wish, of ever meeting 
again. We had been formerly inti- 
mate ; and, as is often the case, I was 
more fond of her than I suspected ; 
she, alas ! less fond of me than she 
appeared. So we parted. 

She had not changed in looks ; but 
her face, naturally very animated, had 
grown calmer and a thought more pale. 



The Mask Veil 7$ 

Her veil, for she was in street costume, 
was drawn until it just covered her 
lips — a very translucent yet closely 
netted veil it was. I recognized it as 
the same I had sometimes dared to 
raise. It really hid nothing of feature 
or expression. But one dissembles 
easier behind howsoever thin a bar- 
rier. 

We were conversing very earnestly 
as of old, yet quietly. Seized with a 
sudden impulse, I arose and leaning 
over her head was about to kiss her 
brow, as in our former intimacy she 
sometimes permitted. The veil sud- 
denly changed to a mask of steel and 
hid her face, her brow. I started back 
in astonishment and. terror, when, 
as quickly as the veil had been trans- 
formed, it now resumed its natural 
appearance. 

" This is my punishment," said she, 
and tears began to fall upon her pallid 
cheek. 

" I suffer the doom of an evil fate. 



j6 Prose Idyls 

Do you not see that this veil has be- 
come the outward reality of the part I 
played with you so lightly, so thought- 
lessly ? 

" I have come in the hope that you 
can release me from the spell — you 
who once loved me so well. I — I 
then had no heart ; you were creating 
it when you abandoned me in despair. 
Oh, what have I suffered since that 
time ! My heart, like a seed long 
in cold earth, at length lived, but the 
more it grew into the light the bitterer 
its pains and regrets. I have come " — 
Her voice choked with tears. 

Then I, though unable myself to speak 
from surprise and emotion, still stand- 
ing by her side, laid my hand upon her 
head and endeavored to soothe and 
calm her. 

" I have come — I thought if you 
would but even kiss me, this terrible, 
mysterious veil would be destroyed. 
But I see it cannot be — it is too 
late ! " 



The Mask Veil 77 

Her distress was too great for words ; 
and I was too much mystified to find 
any. 

The music, which I had never ceased 
to hear, suddenly stopped. It seemed 
to me that if it would only go on I 
could in some way save my beautiful 
friend from her unaccountable des- 
tiny. 

Quicker than I can write it the 
third person of the dream-drama, a 
lady, entered the room, and some in- 
visible hand placed a chair from some 
invisible quarter. Before I had time 
to notice attentively what was going 
on the lady had seated herself, and I 
recognized in her another old acquain- 
tance, but one with whom I had for- 
merly maintained a relation exactly the 
reverse of that with my other friend. 
To tell the truth, I never could endure 
her. Alas ! it is my misfortune to be 
too amiable, and to deceive through 
my good heart the too enamored or 
too careless companion. So I have 



yS Prose Idyls 

raised many a cup tu my lips which I 
never cared to drink. 

In spite of its being but the phan- 
tasm of a dream, the appearance of this 
lady had a natural and rational con- 
nection with its other events. For my 
intercourse with her was founded and 
followed up from the sympathy of our 
musical tastes. She was a famous 
amateur pianist, and always, when not 
seated at the piano, the most nervous, 
fidgety person in the world. It was 
with extreme difficulty she could enter 
a room and sit down in a chair ; and 
one was seized with a thousand ap- 
prehensions as to what would happen 
before she became settled. Her long, 
beautiful hands were never still ; they 
seemed to be forever playing over an 
invisible keyboard ; and her lips and 
I and glanced in unison with 
the movements of her ban 

I know not how, but as soon as she 
entered I heard the music tx jain ; 

and it seemed to enter and proceed 



The Mask Veil 79 

from her. She did not speak ; some 
wonderful change had come over her 
too, for she sat motionless — not a 
finger of her hands moved. She was 
either herself listening to those almost 
spiritual strains of music, or was she 
producing them ? The absence of the 
means of any effect is a small matter 
in dreams ; indeed, we are never in- 
quisitive after causes or instruments, 
and the fact of there being no piano or 
other instrument in the room never 
occurred to me as a reason why she 
should not be playing, or why the 
music should not be heard. 

Did something more strictly spir- 
itual connect itself with these occur- 
rences ? Was it that I had control of a 
power that did not need any material 
organ ? 

At any rate, I now saw present the 
lady whom I have just described, for 
the first time in my life, with real 
pleasure. She seemed to be an angel 
of love and deliverance, and to be in 



So Prose Idyls 

the power of my will, to be herself the 
instrument, rather than the player, and 
I its master. For the music had re- 
turned with her; and it had, I know 
not how, been borne in upon me that 
my lovely friend, whose heart had re- 
turned to me after long separation and 
grief, could not be rescued from the 
fatal mask, which [worn as a veil to 
conceal herself, and behind which she 
was too fond of coquetry and dissem- 
bling] had become her prison, except 
by the power of music. 

Once more, then, I bent over her 
beseeching face and loving eyes — in 
vain ! The mask grew solid again 
and glittered like the bosk of a shield, 
hiding all of her face to the chin. I 
cast a troubled yet authoritative look 
at the silent witness of our hapless 
effort. 

" Sing," she cried out, while her 
hands began to sweep over imaginary 
keys. " I am not able by mere me- 
chanical sounds to remove this dire- 



The Mask Veil 81 

ful Nemesis from your afflicted friend. 
But add your voice to the accompani- 
ment and the enchantment, the curse, 
will be removed, yes, will be expiated." 

Then I resumed the song I was 
singing ere I fell asleep, in which her 
image and the memory of my love had 
mingled and thrilled me with powerful, 
manifold emotions. 

We can do two things at once in 
dreams as easily as one ; and while I 
sang in unison with the distant, won- 
derful accompaniment, I bent down, 
this time to the lips of my beloved, 
and our souls met and united like the 
voice and the instrument, which all 
the while kept sounding on. The 
veil faded into a filmy cloudlet no 
larger than a leaf and floated away. 

The room became silent ; the player 
and mediator had disappeared. My 
companion arose ; she put her arms 
around me and was beginning to 
speak when my joy awoke me — to 
find myself alone, forever alone ! 



THE RED HOUSE 

What is going on in the little red 
house that stands close to the road by 
Bellinghame to Milford town ? No- 
thing, reader, unless you have been 
alive a long time without forgetting 
your very earliest memories ; which, 
however fresh and dear to yourself, are 
of no consequence to another. 

On this midsummer afternoon the 
little red one-storied house is vacant ; 
the family have moved their chairs and 
crickets out to the shade of the orchard 
and are busily employed in braiding 
straw — braiding and chattering. Be- 
hold a group of women, a mother and 
her three daughters, almost grown, and 
her one small boy, whose dress and 
hair do not distinguish his sex. The 
turf is not fully knitted over the grave 
of the only man of the family. That 



The Red House 83 

is why mother and children braid 
straw, from breakfast to dinner, to 
supper, and sometimes far into night. 
The mother presides over the work ; 
the eldest daughter prepares the 
slender meals with such quickness 
that she succeeds in braiding as many 
yards a day as the others. Not a mo- 
ment must be lost. The rent, that 
most tragic of all human affairs, must, 
must be paid at the end of every and 
all months of all years. They are 
cheerful, nevertheless ; they chatter 
on, they even sing sometimes, but in 
low, soft tones, such as best please the 
mother, whose heart has not yet 
healed. That delight of the church 
chorister, the " Prime Flower of 
Florid," she hates, if she could hate 
anything. But you see by her low, 
broad brow, her soft dark eyes, wide 
apart, that she is all gentleness. One 
of her daughters resembles her. The 
other two are blue and blonde, and 
the brother is of their type. There 



84 Prose Idyls 

are strange contrasts in the famih 
if the hereditaments of five different 
ancestors had at length succeeded in 
asserting themselves in distinct form 
and character. For the present, how- 
ever, they are united in a sympathetic 
bond. Affection unites them ; help- 
lessness unites, and poverty, next to 
passion, most forceful binder of hearts 
and hands. 

And so it is that with one feeling 
the ten hands of the brave and virtuous 
family braid the straw which gives 
them food, clothing and shelter, while 
the Father of the fatherless gives them 
happiness. Braiding straw only en- 
gages the fingers, and not quite so 
much as knitting ; the head and tongue 
and other bodily parts are free to en- 
tertain themselves as they please. 
One can even walk and continue the 
occupation, and read a book, as if 
doing nothing else. I can braid a 
little ; my stint is one yard a daw 
When I am one year older it will be 



The Red House 85 

two, then three, and so on, an added 
yard for each year, until I am too old 
for such feminine employment and am 
dismissed from the company of women, 
or perhaps aroused from it by the 
sight of a gun or a plough, as the 
young Achilles hidden among women 
by a sword. 

The family sits braiding, and it is 
a good time to look at the little red 
house, and ever and anon the eyes of 
one or another are lifted and turn 
toward it with fondness. I myself, 
who am but a child boy, the youngest 
of the circle, realize what the house 
contains much more vividly when out 
of it than when in it. Although we 
call it the red house, we mean that it 
was once red, some blotches of which 
remain on its sides, abraded by 
the suns and storms of a hundred 
seasons. But this does not affect me ; 
I do not even see the walls ; I am 
looking through them. I see every 
room and the furniture of each. I see 



86 Prose Idyls 

the kitchen ; its fireplace, its two small 
windows, its five high-backed, rush- 
bottomed chairs ; its round table, with 
a short stem and three branching legs, 
through which I am still small 
enough to crawl, on every day but 
Sunday, when it is turned up and set 
against the wall. Then it always 
seems to me to be going to meeting, 
because, like myself, it is washed and 
scrubbed on Saturday night and looks 
very white and different. As yet I 
do not like the Puritan Sabbath — as 
much as I shall when I grow up to 
become clerk of the parish. It is one 
day in coming and another in going. I 
am already so sensitive to what others 
feel that I feel without knowing why. 
I become with them serious, secretly 
miserable, from which I scarcely re- 
cover before Tuesday. 

Ah, now I look at the little red 
house with joy, while my fingers weave 
over and under the long, narrow 
straws, the motion of whose extreme 



The Red Hoitse 87 

ends resembles the waving antennae 
of some great insect, some saurian ant 
or bee. The room I least often enter 
I see with the greatest distinctness. 
It is the parlor; it is our pride, our 
sole remaining evidence of better days, 
of respectable, rustic gentility. The 
sheriff did not take it ! It is where 
I walk softly and feel subdued. I can- 
not hear my footsteps, and it almost 
frightens me to feel something soft 
under my feet. I look down and the 
stripes and colors of the carpet seem 
too good to walk upon. There are six 
chairs, arranged in pairs, turned a lit- 
tle toward each other, as if ready for 
conversation, almost vocal with those 
common greetings — " How have you 
been ? " " Will you lay aside your 
things ? " " I am so glad to see you ! " 
These much prized chairs are always 
in the same place ; they themselves 
would protest against any change; the 
whole family would resent it. Every 
day one of the daughters goes in to 



88 Prose Idyls 

see that they are in their rightful 
places. She murmurs as she goes, 
" Some one may come." They have 
gilt figures on the backs and on the 
two side spindles. I rest my elbows 
on the seats and look up and wonder 
at those resplendent figures. A sense 
of something greater than myself 
comes over me. It is the first step. 
It is only some crude, gilded tracery, 
resembling thin bands of clouds, spi- 
raled and wreathed by the wind. As 
I do not know what it means, it is 
greater than I. In the corner is an 
open wood stove ; it has brass knobs 
on its flat top and brass cylinders sunk 
in its iron jambs. On either side the 
stove are the brass-handled shovel and 
tongs in their ear-shaped rests, on one 
of which hangs the bellows ; its convex 
side is bright with Chinese figures in 
blue and yellow. I never tire of blow- 
ing it, and then by way of reprisal, 
blowing my breath back into its 
zle. But what I see with the fondest 



The Red House 89 

pride, as I look toward the end of the 
little red house where the parlor is 
situated, are two pictures on the par- 
lor wall. They are my own ; they 
are the only things in the world that 
I am conscious of possessing ; and 
they are in a place of honor — they 
are in our parlor ! They are the only 
things in the house with which I do 
not wish to play. I stand and look up 
at them absorbed, trying to think 
something ; and one of them looks at 
me, but the other does not. The for- 
mer is the more precious ; it is a pic- 
ture of two puppies with large, round 
eyes looking directly into mine. I 
believe they are real dogs because 
I can see on the other side of them. I 
have a longing to put my hands upon 
them, but they are too high up, and 
I begin to have a very curious feeling 
about things I cannot touch nor taste, 
and that have no other dimension 
than surface, as of something mysteri- 
ous and dangerous. I revenge myself 



qo Prose Idyls 

on discovering the flat surface of the 
pictures in my books by defacing 
them. With a pin I prick out the 
eyes of the whole " Browne Family " 
in my little story-book when I find 
that there is nothing on the other 
side of the leaf. But as yet I believe 
my dogs to be solid. I am already a 
stern realist. Earth and water are 
the only substances which completely 
gratify me. There is enough of both, 
and rarely do I have enough of any- 
thing I love. 

Although I take equal satisfaction 
in being the owner of the other picture, 
it does not make so much impression 
upon me. It is a picture of two chil- 
dren, a boy and girl, in blue and white 
dresses. Both have fair hair falling 
in curls over their shoulders. On the 
boy's hand is perched a dove, and his 
eyes are turned upon it ; but those of 
his companion are fixed upon him. 
If she would only look away some- 
times, would look at me, I should like 



The Red House 91 

her better. Her steady gaze upon 
that boy puzzles me. I conclude after 
much reflection that he is her brother. 
There is only one other thing that 
draws my attention from my work ; it 
is the river, the placid Charles, my 
plaything summer and winter ; yonder 
it slides under the stone arch, and on 
through a mile of alders bent over with 
the weight of wild grapevines, making 
an aerial, verdant bridge all the way. 
In vain do I imagine where the stream 
can be going. I have been told many 
times that it flows into the ocean. 
Ocean ? What is it ? No one knows ; 
no one has seen it. Nevertheless I 
know where the river begins, and I 
follow it up to where it is so narrow 
that with a run and a great spring 
I can jump across. "What, can you 
jump across the Charles River ? " This 
will be questioned me when I reach 
its mouth and find what great things 
are boasted there. And I shall an- 
swer with pleasant irony : " But you 



92 Prose Idyls 

see I began very young to leap your 
wide Boston Charles ; it also was 
young." 

At length my yard, my stint, is done. 
I lay it in my mother's lap, who praises 
its evenness, kisses me, and tells me 
that I may now go and play. Then 
I run to a certain tree under which I 
keep my wheels, my boxes, my strings, 
my nails, and I forget the little red 
house and all that concerns it. I am 
now in my own kingdom, in the midst 
of my own affairs, where I create and 
destroy worlds with all the magic ma- 
chinery of an arch thaumaturgist. 



LOVE LETTERS 

The recluse of Valencita, in whose 
bosom the light of love had been 
extinguished for several weeks, sat 
before his darkening hearth holding 
a small portfolio now empty and flat. 
A spark reillumined for a moment the 
red jambs and sooty back of the fire- 
place ; it slowly ignited the sacrifice 
about to be offered up in memory and 
obliteration of a star that came across 
the whole expanse of the heavens and 
stood for many nights above his her- 
mitage. 

There were only four letters ; but 
three were thick, thick almost as an 
Aldine classic, and contained many 
closely written sheets ; not a space was 
left ; postscript followed postscript, 
round and round the margins, across 
and across like a triple palimpsest, 



94 Prose Idyls 

until at last no room was remaining 
for the final words which seemed to 
hesitate, to linger, to refuse them- 
selves to the pen. 

The fourth, which was the first in 
date, was thinner, in more careful 
penmanship and more timid of words ; 
much fair paper was unblotted, and it 
ended half way down the last page, but 
ended with a word, a sigh, a something 
that kindled into love as the embers 
upon the hearth now kindled its corpse. 

The letters burned slowly ; they 
were compacted and saturated with 
close lines of ebon ink ; this and the 
obduracy of loving words, were they 
not resisting the fiery extinction ? At 
length the edges blazed ; the heat 
opened the pages ; they began to roll 
up, and a faint crepitating prot 
arose, quite to the heart of the 
watcher. Soon every leaf separated 
itself from every other, as if each one 
would now try to save itself only, like 
the scorched victims of a conflagration. 



Love Letters 95 

Then the flames swept them only the 
more furiously. More and more madly 
they ran in and out among the help- 
less leaves, chasing each other back 
and forth like frenzied, avenging 
spirits. A few stood out defiantly 
— the true inconsumable sentences ! 

On the blackened sheets, now re- 
duced to an izzle, could be discerned 
some still blacker lines of ink; yes, 
even words, from which had fallen 
away all grosser material, as the tissue 
falls from the leaf leaving but tracery ; 
and looking down into the immolated 
heap the recluse read with perfect 
distinctness — "I am still thine." 



THE DEVIL'S BARGAIN 

The Devil diffuses himself with 
enormous strides and short calls when 
he alights on the shores of New- 
Hampshire. The air is too heavy for 
flying and he is compelled thus to walk. 
The shore of New Hampshire is only 
a day's journey ; but for him he passes 
over it like the wind which continually 
blows there. And like the wind he 
enters the wide-mouthed chimneys and 
greets those who are expecting him. 

To-night the little store-keeper ex- 
pects him. He is counting ninepences, 
on each one of which he has made half 
a cent in his day's bartering. When 
he sells anything lie calls the silver 
piece worth twelve cents ; when he 
buys, thirteen. Thus has he become 
the richest of all his neighbors. The 
Devil chuckles as he sees him at this 



The Devil's Bargain 97 

business and grows fonder of him. 
He desires his soul and has offered a 
handsome bargain for it, whereby there 
is to be a shorter road to wealth than 
the ninepenny one for the little store- 
keeper. 

The Devil steps softly and peers in 
upon him. He delights to witness 
his employment. 

"Aha ! little man, there is no longer 
need to count so carefully thy base 
silver. Gold ! Dost thou not know the 
look of it ? It gleams like the sun ! 
Away with that pale, ignoble stuff, 
only fit for the palms of slaves and 
beggars ! Thou shalt have gold, bright 
gold ! more than flashed on Solomon's 
Temple or irisated the corridors of 
Caesar's palace." 

The little store-keeper stood up ; 
his eyes dilated with expectation. 
His silver seemed dross ; his riches 
ineffable poverty. 

" When, when shall I see the good 
gold ? " he cried. 



98 Prose Idyls 



"To-night! ere the cock crows, or 
ever the sun makes the sign of the 
golden eagle on the horizon ! Hang 
thou thy largest and longest legged 
boot in the chimney corner, and I will 
pour down from above more than shall 
fill it of such gold as thou never hast 
seen, even in dreams over thy clipped 
and greasy silver." 

The little store-keeper was in ec- 
stasies, for he bethought him of the 
boots with the long legs, so long he 
never could wear them. 

" To-night, I say. ere the cock crows, 
or ever the sun makes the sign of the 
golden eagle on the horizon — nearest 
thou ? And thy soul when thou hast 
done with it, it shall be mine. Art 
thou agreed ? " 

The store-keeper thought twice ; he 
sharp witted. A little more and 
a little le-.s were always in his mind 
when he bargained. 

•' Beshrew thy hard bargain," said 
he. "Thou mayest fill it twice as well 



The Devil's Bargain 99 

as once, what difference to thee, and 
then I shall be thine after the gold has 
comforted me through my life." 

" Thou rogue ! I see thou hast an 
eye for the ruddy gold despite thy 
up-gathered and unprofitable silver. 
A mountain of it shall be as dust 
under thy feet." 

The little trader's heart expanded, 
and his little eye twinkled like a steely 
star in the remotest heavens. He 
loved a sharp bargain and few words 
to the making of it. Never had he 
compassed one so much after the 
manner of his liking. 

" Gold ! thou shalt have enough of 
it ! One night shall fill all thy bags 
and chests ; for that thy soul ! The 
second night thy cellar and thy well 
shall hardly contain it. But beware, 
thou rogue, that thou dost not forfeit 
the days of thine earthly life, seeing 
they were well enough spent with 
thy silver and thy sly trafficking. 

" Remember ! ere the cock crows, or 



I CO Prose Idyls 

ever the sun makes the sign of the 
golden eagle on the horizon ! And if 
I come a second time, listen for the 
roaring of the wind in thy chimney and 
the rote of the sea on thy shore where 
a hundred wrecks lie rotting ! " 

At night he remembered his word 
and filled the boot-leg of the smart 
trader until it overran and half filled 
the fireplace. 

The second night the wind roared 
in the great chimney. The rote of 
the sea shrieked among the bones 
of a hundred buried wrecks, and with 
a great stride, his monstrous cloak 
bellying in the wind, the Devil alighted 
at the top of the chimney. 

The little cheater was expecting 
him. Sharper than the stiletto of a 
Venetian assassin was his wit, and he 
bethought him to cozen the Devil with 
a trick surpassing all the rogueries of 
Christendom ; yes. even those of that 
paragon of all rogues, Ha] Tufts, of 
Lubberland in Durham town. 



The Devil's Bargain ioi 

He hung his long-legged boot in the 
fireplace, but first he cut clean off 
the bottom ! 

The gold rattled down ; it poured 
through the leg of the boot ; it rolled 
and glittered and covered the floor and 
filled the room. 

And still the Devil poured. 

" Aha ! " said he at last. " Is it you, 
my little man ? Are you there ? I 
thought so. So — I am here — not for 
the last time neither, by my soul ! Ho 
there ! Now thou art mine, body — and 
soul, if thou hast one — in this life, and 
down there ! Dost thou hear ? 

" A cheap bargain ! But what trouble 
these mortals take to sell themselves, 
they who are already mine." 

The Devil disappeared, but not far 
off was he. 

The little trader now made haste to 
store his treasure into bags, barrels, 
chests and closets. The bags rent, the 
hoops flew from the barrels, the chests 
fell apart, the closet floor dropped out. 



102 Prose Idyls 

"There is the cellar and the well," 
thought he. 

No sooner was the gold packed into 
the cellar than the bottom sank out of 
sight, and as it disappeared he heard 
the Devil laugh. 

" The well will hold the remainder," 
he moaned, "and the water will hide 
it." 

The water received it with a gurgle 
that sounded like the laughter of 
fiends. Then all vanished. The bot- 
tom fell out of the well — the bottom 
fell out of everything ! 

With a groan the poor trader re- 
turned to his counter, his scales, his 
yardstick and his ninepences. 

" Silver is good enough for me," he 
said. Still no bottom would stay in any- 
thing. Jugs, canisters, casks, even his 
money drawers and his breeches pocket 
became merely tunnels through which 
all their various contents streamed out 
and went to waste. 

"Oh, that accursed boot-leg!" be 
groaned. 



The Devil ' s Bargain 103 

His spirit was broken ; his mind 
went out ; his body withered away. 

He died and was buried. Such a 
burial ! Oh, the horror of the mourners 
to see when his coffin was lowered — 
to see the bottom fall out of the grave 
and the coffin disappear ! And an in- 
fernal laugh went up from the black 
and yawning pit through which it 
sank ; then a mocking voice — " Aha ! 
Are you here, my little trader, my sweet 
ninepence, my thrifty boot-leg ? " 



THE SOUL OF THINGS 

My father bequeathed to me the 
whole of his estate and the friendship of 
his ancient neighbors and companions. 
He communicated to me, from time to 
time, his experience, accumulated in 
a long life of action and suffering, and 
I was betimes instructed in all the 
wisdom of the elder sages and poets 
by their most celebrated successors. I 
looked about the world ; I saw nothing 
more to be desired. 

I sat down among my possessions, 
contemplating them in grateful tran- 
quillity, thankful neither to have pur- 
chased nor earned any of them. For 
I lived in an age and among a people 
whose activities were altogether com- 
mercial. If I deserved my possessions, 
it was not on account of my own ef- 
forts or merits, but those of my father 



The Soul of Things 105 

and a long line of fortunate ances- 
tors. 

Unambitious and easily satisfied, I 
readily discovered my lot in life which, 
like that of Ulysses, I found thrown 
contemptuously aside and long neg- 
lected. From the first, and before I 
became conscious of any choice, I en- 
joyed nothing so much as sitting still 
and meditating on the soul of things. 
This vague phrase pleased me more 
than the exact language of science, or 
that of the masters of other sorts of 
learning. This was in my youth. It 
seemed to me that with leisure, in 
silence and with a free mind, I might 
come nearer to knowing the material 
world and interpreting its life, its soul, 
than by experiment and analysis. 

When I speak in the active voice, 
as if I could come nearer, it is a figure 
of speech, similar to that which we 
use when we speak of the sun's ris- 
ing and setting. It was I that was to 
remain fixed ; it was things which were 



106 Prose Idyls 

to come nearer, which were to rise and 
reveal themselves. I confess that all 
I know of nature, of things, and of all 
animals save man, of whom I know 
little but by tradition, I have learned 
by sitting still, looking on or listen- 
ing. Everything comes more than half 
way toward the man who is still. The 
bird alights upon his head as upon a 
bough. 

Thus have I often become aware of 
the soul of things, and that inanimate 
as they seem and are declared to be, 
they all have a faculty of expression. 
Yes, I have seen the leaves move 
without wind ; I have seen trees bend 
and grow toward each other, and one 
hand of the Traveler's Joy clasp the 
fingers of another. I have seen water 
lilies on their long, flexile footstalks, 
though anchored deep in mud, draw 
closer. Who has not seen drops of 
water run together ? and who was 
ever satisfied to call it capillary attrac- 
tion ? I have seen the next flower 



The Soul of Things 107 

open at the edge of the bank where 
the first had opened, and all again 
close in due reverse order. I need not 
speak of the notes of birds and insects 
which have but one fixed meaning, 
clear, simple and certain ; nor the hum 
of bees about their queen, the waving 
antennae of ants on meeting ; nor musi- 
cal notes which make the dust of the 
earth assume the forms of stars and 
shells and flowers, by an ascending 
tone adding a new petal until the co- 
rolla is complete, and by a full octave 
arranging particles of matter in circles 
and globes. Nor have I a doubt that 
the fragrance of some flowers is their 
soul, and that it resembles what we 
call character in people, a subtle thing 
that goes forth without action or ef- 
fort. 

But why should I accumulate and 
enumerate examples like a school- 
book ; for there is never any possibil- 
ity of completing the list ; and words 
do not signify nor translate the meth- 



io8 Prose Idyls 

ods of expression common to the soul 
of things. They are inexpressible and 
invisible ; but the invisible is all that 
is worth seeing, the inexpressible all 
that is worth listening to. 



THE HOUSE DOOR 

I sat down by the door ; by the door 
of my house I sat down and wept. 

" Door," said I, "have you closed at 
last upon all that was lovely, all that I 
loved ? " 

Here we came in youth ; the door 
opened widely ; lightly in trooped all 
the joys and the hopes ; the earth 
smiled ; the sea sang a thousand dif- 
ferent songs ; the days were long. 

Children were born, and we were 
glad. 

The rose died ; the stripling oak was 
uprooted. 

Love divided grief, and we lived on. 

In the spring, in the little field, a 
violet bloomed ; and in the summer, 
by the porch, an eglantine. 

All tears were wiped away. The 
door still opened as wide as ever. But 



HO Prose lily Is 

the prospect narrowed, became more 
distant, more indistinct, and the waves 
of the sea thundered on the outer 
reefs. 

The days grew shorter. There were 
signs and omens ; we turned our eyes 
away ; but they also turned and faced 
us. 

Then the long, dark procession, 
speechless, veiled, passed over the 
threshold, never returning. 

And I myself closed the entrance, 
always so unsuspectingly open ; and 
I said, now shall I keep the remnant 
that is left ; and I thrice bolted and 
barred that deceiving and voracious 
door. 

It was in vain ! in vain ! 

The living now escaped from it, I 
knew not how, and I alone was left 
within. 

Beautiful ghosts were my compan- 
ions. Often too I saw one from which 
the limbs had been torn ; bleeding 
from its eternal wounds that In. 



The House Door m 

but to reopen, it looked down upon 
me with remediless agony. It was 
myself ; unable any longer to bear the 
sight, I fled through the door. Of it- 
self it closed behind me, and I heard 
for the last time the bolts rattle in 
their sockets. 

And I sat down by the door and 
wept. 



THE VOICE 

Gabriel could hardly keep his 
lids from closing on the book he was 
reading, pages which reflected a new 
dreamer's dream. He too was a 
uner. But an irresistible languor 
continually overcame him, in which he 
seemed to be carried far away among 
strange and weeping faces. It was 
not that he was more weary than usual 
or more sad. He had finished his 
.in and impossible task, with 
bent brow and impetuous pen. N 

se in the disengaged hour, he re- 
signed the possession of himself to 
the new writer. Slowly he lost him ; 
his head sank, his eyes closed. Yet 
he was wide awake ; his mind did not 
sleep ; it was traversing an immense 
space in intense pursuit of some- 
thing. 



The Voice 1 1 3 

Suddenly some one called, " Ga- 
briel ! " He put his feet from the chair 
and leaned forward. The voice called 
again " Gabriel! Gabriel !" It seemed 
to come from the door ; he arose joy- 
fully, for he knew the voice, and 
opened, but no one was there. He 
stepped across the threshold ; twilight 
was there and silence. " Ah, she is 
amusing me ; she wishes to surprise 
me. She has come ; that voice could 
be no other's ; there is none like it in 
the world ! " " Gabrielle ! " he called, 
" where are you ? Do not tantalize 
me." 

He stood a long time at the open 
door. Then he reentered his room. 
" She must be here," he murmured. 
But all the chairs were empty and the 
room was stiller than before. He went 
to the window ; again he went to the 
door ; he knew she must be near ; the 
voice was hers. He recognized it 
more surely now than at first, for 
it kept on sounding in his ears. It 



1 14 Prose Idyls 

called aloud no more. Still he knew 
she must be near, and he waited for 
her to spring suddenly from her hid- 
ing, from her little pleasantry, into his 
arms. Long he listened ; long he 
waited. Often he went to door and 
window. Day grew into darkness ; 
the night reigned and divided her 
realm among a thousand stars. Gabriel 
sat long, immovable, expectant, so that 
his heart beat harder and harder. He 
was more awake than he had been in 
all his life. The voice became to him 
certain and real; the mystery more 
impenetrable. Just when he thought 
he should watch the night out, and 
even felt he could never again close 
his eyes, he fell asleep. So soundly 
he slept ! tie heard no voice, he 
dreamed no dream. In the morning 
he awoke and it seemed to him that 
he had been dreaming a long time, 
or rather listening to the voice of a 
dream. "It is nothir .1 he ; "let 

us to work." " It is nothing/' said lie ; 



The Voice 1 1 5 

" the words of the book I was reading 
came to life, they spoke ; but why 
should they call, ' Gabriel ' ? " 

He thought no more about it ; he re- 
sumed his task, as everything does in 
the morning. The tide of the labo- 
rious, ineffectual sea flowed by his win- 
dow; the new sun streamed through 
it ; the grass lightly waved a longer 
streamer ; the trees trembled as their 
roots shot deeper into the earth. A 
faint humming arose over the whole 
sad, toiling world. In it one might 
hear the murmur of a myriad tongues, 
hearts, brains, hands, feet, all eagerly 
demanding of the day bread, fame, gold, 
love, increase of joy or surcease of pain. 
Gabriel's pen joined in the chorus. 
He wrote everything and failed in all. 
Fame followed him not. No one heard 
him. He wrote, he read the sentence, 
the page aloud to himself. What was 
the matter with it ? • Then he wrote 
poetry, finished, tenuous, unassailable, 
panoplied with every grace and art, 



n6 Prose Idyls 

finest grains of gold dipped from the 
streams whose founts were in mythic 
lands, poetry, almost poetry. He bent 
his brow, he worked harder than ever ; 
not for gold, not for fame, but with an 
insatiable passion to pour out upon the 
page all that he knew, all that he ob- 
served, all that he felt. 

Did he know, had he observed, had 
he ever felt ? Yes ; but as the leaf 
folded in the bud, before it has been 
rained upon, smitten by whirlwinds, 
shriveled by the sun, pierced by frost, 
and at length blown into the mud and 
trampled by the implacable, Khada- 
manthine feet of men and women. All 
these things he could paint with a 
dainty hand, not as having suffered 
himself, but distantly, as the ancient 
tautologies of human destiny. So the 
bud safely folded, fold on fold, softly 
chanted of the leaf and what wis 
about to happen to it, knowing as 
much as youth knows of age, as much 
as the inquisitor knows of the martyr. 



The Voice 117 

So the bud, safely folded, fold on fold, 
softly chanted of the unfolded leaf. 

That day Gabriel arose from his 
table and his papers and a voice 
within cried, " It is futile ; this is 
neither red with redness, nor black 
with blackness. Thou callest it now 
red, now black, and commandest thy 
readers to observe as much. But life, 
life itself is not there ! " 

Then Gabriel said, " I will journey; 
perhaps I shall come back with a wiser 
mind." 

" I will go to her whom I love. I 
will bring her home with me ; and life 
shall teach me. Through her I shall 
know all." 

For three days and nights he hast- 
ened on, and he arrived at her door 
as the night fell. He entered joy- 
ously ; high his heart beat and already 
he felt the embrace of Gabrielle. 

The rooms were silent ; the dra- 
peries were unlooped ; the ebony fur- 
niture shone with a metallic lustre, 



I 1 8 Prose Idyls 

like the caskets of the dead. Women, 
clothed in black, sat in the shadowed 
recesses, weeping. He stopped ; a 
terror seized him. "Where is she?" 
said Gabriel. 

" She called for thee," said one ; 
"thou didst not come and she de- 
parted without thee. She said, these 
were her last words, that she should 
go to thee and never be separated 
again. Hast thou not seen her ? " 

" No ; " said Gabriel. " But I heard 
her call, and I have looked everywhere 
for her ; it was her voice then ! Ah, 
I knew it must be." 

" Yes," said one. "When Death had 
even himself called to her, she arose, 
and with a wandering mind went from 
room to room, imploring thy name, 
Gabriel, in such a tone thou wouldst 
have heard though thyself dead. Then 
she slept a little space, she slept, and 
awoke happy, for she said she had 
seen thee reading in a book and after- 
ward the door opened for her. Then 



The Voice 119 

her eyes closed and did not look again ; 
she breathed and there was yet a smile 
at the corners of her mouth, and we 
could not tell when she ceased to "be. 
We know only she has gone from us 
to thee. Thou must return speedily, 
for she is already there and awaiting 
thee." 

For three days and nights Gabriel 
traveled 'back, but his spirit went on 
before, and he did not note either the 
night or the day. It was autumn ; the 
leaves were falling, and in the north 
the weltering sea grew green under 
the horizontal sun. 

Gabriel reentered his room. No- 
thing was changed but himself. He 
listened again for the voice and heard 
it now in his bosom. He listened more 
and more for the voice ; the tears fell 
upon the page and formed themselves 
into words, sentences, strophes. For 
a long time yet no one else heard the 
voice ; or, if they chanced to hear, 
stayed only to mock, or to assure 



120 Prose Idyls 

themselves that it was no voice at all, 
the mere passing, spring piping of the 
hylas in the roadside ditch. 

At length it changed ; now it seemed 
to listeners to come from the t: 
and now, wonderful ! from the highest 
pinnacle of the mountain. And some 
affirmed it came from heaven itself. 



THE WRITER'S WALK 

Having finished his morning's al- 
lotted task, the writer of beautiful 
books bethought him to walk awhile 
and cool his flagrant brain. 

As usual, he set forward in the direc- 
tion of peaceful seclusion, where he 
could at once calm himself and con- 
duct his plots and portray his charac- 
ters for the next day's fixation upon 
the precious pages. 

Delightful labor ! to create as it were 
out of nothing, yes, out of one's own 
head, scenes, dialogue, even persons 
that would seem to every one real, veri- 
similar, though the readers should 
never have known or seen the like ; to 
cause them to think they had, what so 
wonderful illusion in the world ! And 
there is no good author who does not 
flatter his readers after this manner. 



i 22 Prose Idyls 

Xo wonder the writer of beautiful 
books turned away from crowded 
streets and the habitations of men 
whose walls touch in order more se- 
curely to separate them. Not there 
could he find the stuff that he needed 
for the creative alembic. 

But of a sudden, he knew not how, 
an impulse came over him to turn short 
about and walk among the streets, 
among men and women. Then, as is 
usual to the reflective mind, he con- 
sidered his impulse and how he should 
make it profitable. And as one seldom 
can divest himself entirely of the busi- 
ness he is about, he said to himself, 
"I will see what I can find among 
actual men and women to identify and 
verify these pictorial beings I am now 
clothing with faculties, ideas and per- 
sonality." Finally, as merely 1 
ing gave him but little satisfaction, it 
occurred to him to salute some of 
the people he met with and en 
their attention long enough to dis- 



The Writers Walk 123 

cover if they were at all like his inven- 
tions. 

" Good-morrow," said he, to a man 
who was mixing mortar for a new 
block of houses already built to the 
third story. 

" Good - morrow to yourself," an- 
swered the mixer of mortar. 

"How smoothly the mortar runs off 
your hoe," said the writer of beauti- 
ful books. 

" Yes, indeed ; after you have pulled 
it through a thousand times and get 
it tempered right, then it sticks to 
nothing but the bricks. The hoe 
leaves a wake behind it like a steam- 
boat ; and the mortar comes off the 
hoe like the wave from the rock." 

" Good-day," said the writer of beau- 
tiful books. 

There now, thought he to himself, 
that is the way it should be with my 
sentences ; they should adhere only 
to the characters for whom they are 
tempered. And the man knows a si- 



I 24 Prose Idyls 

militude when he sees it. In fact, he 
knows his own business pretty well. 

But then, he did not have to create 
his lime and sand. 'T is easy to mix 
when you have the ingredients. 

Then he walked on, and stopped 
where a number of others were stand- 
ing, mostly ladies, in front of a great 
show-window. A profusion of silks, 
velvets, and laces hung from the ceil- 
ing to the floor, falling in rich dark 
folds, or soft, negligent trails, so that 
one instinctively thought, what splen- 
did costumes they would make for 
one's wife or sister ! As if in response 
to this secret feeling, figures came 
forth in the same or equally gorgeous 
panoplies and faultless fittings, circling 
slowly and monotonously in never-end- 
ing minuet on their hypothetic feet. 
displaying every possible attribute of 
the materials and the style. You would 
have thought yourself at one of Ma- 
dame Pompossiter's receptions. It was 
quite irresistible. 



The Writers Walk 125 

Then as if to turn the window of 
stuffs and dummies to some account, 
the writer of beautiful books solilo- 
quized whether, on the whole, it were 
not easier to dress up a dummy in per- 
fectly good English, choice, apposite 
English, than an actual English being; 
whether such language, especially in 
conversational passages, was not more 
important than anything else to pro- 
mote the illusion of reality. He was 
almost persuaded. 

But he had come into a crowded 
street where he was liable to be noticed 
if he saluted anybody, and his quest 
did not seem at all accomplished. So 
he turned into a less frequented thor- 
oughfare. 

He came anon to a beggar, who 
appeared to have nothing to do but 
sit at her receipt of customs. He 
stopped and gave her an unusual alms. 
Her blessing was correspondingly 
large and emphatic. He talked with 
her a little while, and found her diction 



126 Prose Idyls 

singularly fitted to her occupation. 
She spoke in the idiom of experienced 
beggars ; it was not wanting in finesse 
and picturesqueness. It was not often 
she had a chance to talk with a 
passer-by. 

The writer of beautiful books was 
impressed by it, and remembered some 
of her epithets and adjectives. But 
she herself did not answer his purpose. 
He had never created anything of that 
kind ; nor yet mortar-mi.xers. As to 
the dummies in the show-window they 
came nearer to his notion, as they left 
so much room for contrivance and 
embellishment. And he walked on, 
speaking with various people, learning 
many new things, observing various 
characteristics in speech, manners, and 
mind among his fellow -beings. But 
none seemed to answer exactly his 
purpose ; none were comparable to 
those that had grown up in his hr 
nation in the stillness and solitude of 
his study. 



The Writers Walk 127 

Then he turned back homeward, 
and resuming his pen, the writer of 
beautiful books exclaimed, as if he 
had suddenly solved the riddle of the 
Sphinx, " If we must create, let us do 
as the gods ; let us create out of no- 
thing ! " 



THE SECRET OF AUTHORSHIP 

:>ugh a -mown, the secret 

of authorship has never before been 
divulged. 

We were talking of its pains and 
pleasures, my friend and I, and how 
we happened to become writers 
do not wonder," I _ 

much how I began to write as 
contin 

" Do you recall," said he, " when 
you did begin 

\"o." I replied, "I do not, except 
in t: - :est w: 

" Well, then," said he, " that is the 
difficulty with you ; that explains why 
you do not get on Ix 

■ Explain yourself," I exclaimed. 

He complied, and went on to g 

an account of his c ; erience in 



The Secret of Authorship 129 

beginning to write, which he pretended 
was the secret of his success and my 
want of it. Successful I knew he 
was ; but why, had been to me some- 
what inexplicable. Much as I es- 
teemed him as a friend, and a compan- 
ion from boyhood, I never found in 
the man himself a trace of that fine 
energy and those remarkable thoughts 
which appeared so profusely upon his 
pages. This seeming paradox was in 
some measure reconciled by the nar- 
rative which he proceeded to relate. 

"You remember the old school- 
house where you began your education 
about the time I had completed mine. 
Can you not still see its three tiers 
of benches and slanting desks on 
either side, rising one above another ? 
The highest left not much room be- 
tween the head of a tall boy like me and 
the ceiling. I was already advanced 
to this upper row of seats, that is, I 
was of an age to belong to the first, or 
highest class in the school. There were 



130 Prose Idyls 

four boys in the class and six girls. 
Originally there had been the same 
number, six, of each sex ; but two 
boys had dropped off, one to become a 
clerk, the other a carpenter. We 
thought we knew a great deal. It 
was the age of extreme, self-conscious 
wisdom. We were on very friendly 
terms with our young and pretty 
school-mistress. She treated us al- 
most as equals ; and we, on our part, 
treated the lower classes linger 

children with almost contempt. We 
could now read in the highest grade 
reading-book, perform most of t". 
amples at the end of the arithmetic, 
and spell those bizarre and crucial 
words which are never used or heard 
of out of spelling-books. And, in 
short, we were about to be graduated, 
and were looked upon with awe by the 
other scholars and with some pride by 
our teacher, who allowed us certain 
privileges on account »»f our md 

the dignity of an upper class. One of 



The Secret of Authorship 131 

the most prized of these privileges 
was that on warm summer afternoons, 
when the schoolhouse became uncom- 
fortable and the small children restless 
and noisy, we were permitted to go 
out under the trees not far away and 
study and rehearse to each other our 
lessons for the next day. We were 
old enough to be safely intrusted 
with that liberty. 

" In these little retreats from the 
school-room we usually separated into 
companionable couples who studied 
out of one book. It was singular how 
frequently it happened that there were 
only half as many books as scholars. 
Consequently it was necessary for 
each pair to sit close together to get 
their heads over the same page. It is 
true there were not quite enough boys 
to make up these fond couples ; but 
there are always, fortunately, girls who 
much prefer each other to any boys 
whatever. In this way innocent at- 
tachments were formed, often lasting, 
oftener transient. 



13- Prose Idyls 

u The time came when we were to 
write compositions, a new and untried 
intellectual exercise, but considered 
the last fine flower of our training. 
Our school-mistress was much per- 
plexed to find suitable subjects for all 
of us, and when she had named eight 
her resources were quite exhausted. 
A happy thought came to her ; she 
would let two of us, a girl and boy, 
choose our own topics. The lot fell 
upon me and the girl I most affected. 
We asked to be allowed to write our 
compositions in our favorite academe 
under the trees. Our request was 
granted. So armed each one with 
slate and pencil we went out, and each 
pair chose its own little ambush where 
to invite all the rustic muses to its 
aid. 

" My companion and I sought the 
largest tree we could find, within 
whose instepped bole we could sit and 
find support lkre we sat down and 
prepared to write. It was a dubious 



The Secret of Aitthorship 133 

situation ; no subject, and not an idea 
in one's head. There was a profound, 
distressing silence. I was waiting to 
hear the sound of my companion's 
pencil on her slate, for I thought her 
beginning would insure mine. I did 
not dare look at her. I experienced 
more constraint than ever before, and 
I was conscious that my credit was at 
stake with her in this first momentous 
effort. I felt something soft rustling 
against me ; and presently an arm 
leaned over my shoulder. I looked up, 
and met a pair of eyes fixed upon my 
blank slate. 

" ' Begin,' said she ; ' you must write 
your own composition first, then for 
me — will you not? I have heard that 
those who love could — could inspire 
— that was the word — each other. I 
will look over, and when you make a 
mistake, or hesitate, I will do that — 
inspire, help you ; can I ? ' 

" I looked up into her trusting, ex- 
pectant eyes, and I began. Yes, it 



134 Prose Idyls 

was then I began to write. Do you 
remember how much the teacher and 
friends praised the little essay, after 
it was copied out upon sheets of gilt- 
edged paper and tied with a ribbon for 
exhibition on our graduation day — tied 
and arranged, and in truth as good as 
written by that girl who is now my 
wife ? 

" So now my axiom is : no man can 
write well unless a woman looks over 
his shoulder ; and you see, old friend, 
why it is you don't succeed." 



THE POOL 

A SOCIALISTIC APOLOGUE 

Two immense rivers flowed beside 
the greatest, the most magnificent city 
in the world. It was full of palaces 
filled with jewels, services of china and 
gold, a single piece of which was a 
fortune ; statues, pictures, and books, 
priceless, incomparable masterpieces, 
crowded the walls. Temples and 
theatres rose above even the proudest 
of the palaces, on which untold wealth 
had been lavished, and in which the 
most beautiful women and the most 
accomplished men alternately wor- 
% shiped and amused themselves. All 
that gold could command for luxury, 
for display, for refinement, for patron- 
age of all arts and sciences that make 
life ornamental or commodious was 



136 Prose Idyls 

poured out in an abundant and ever 
increasing stream. All accidents or 
misfortunes that happened to other 
parts of the world, wars, famines, 
floods, failures of merchants or capital, 
the men of this city were able to take 
advantage of and make redound to the 
repletion of their already bursting 
coffers. 

The prosperous cities around this 
metropolis, when they were most pros- 
perous, sent their superfluous wealth, 
their ablest men and fairest women, to 
surcharge its dazzling streets, salons, 
palaces and temples. When not pros- 
perous they went as. supplicants to the 
proud emporium and brought back 
good fortune at fabulous, ruinous rates. 

The two great rivers washed either 
side of the city, bringing down all the 
commodities of inland countries ; and 
their commerce paid tribute both when 
it entered the city and when it re- 
turned from the seas beyond. Besides 
this the two rivers and the ocean at 



The Pool 137 

their mouth brought health to the citi- 
zens and the most delicious climate of 
the five zones. 

But in the midst of the city was a 
Pool, not very large, but which was 
fed by a far-off stream — and generally 
invisible — that poured along a contin- 
uous current of noisome and pestilen- 
tial waters. No drought seemed to 
affect it, nor yet rains ; nor any season 
of the year. Frost froze it not ; the 
suns of summer did not evaporate it. 
Only in the night, and on some sacred 
and secular holidays, and when the 
suffragists were, preparing for their 
annual or quadrennial contests, did its 
volume seem to increase at all. 

At times a deadly vapor arose from 
the Pool, destroying all who breathed 
it, alike the. rich and the poor. The 
Pool was believed to be bottomless — 
and it was. And the far-off stream 
never ceased to flow and to fill it to 
the brim. 

The city arose with all its mighty 



138 Prose Idyls 

energy, its colossal resources, to sup- 
press the dreadful plague. The au- 
thorities attacked it on all sides with 
every known device and newest in- 
vented engines for pumping and sewer- 
age ; innumerable conduits pierced its 
entire circumference. In vain ! not 
an inch could they lower the deadly 
abyss. The citizens volunteered, and 
with uninterrupted relays of buckets 
and private sluices endeavored to 
empty the foul pit of waters. Even 
ladies of the wealthiest and most lux- 
urious families, doffing their more 
costly dresses and jewels, went down 
to the edge of the Pool, and with gloved 
hands and silver dippers essayed to 
alleviate the evil of which they had 
heard, but which as yet had hardly 
touched the hem of their garments. 
It even became fashionable to devote 
some afternoons to bailing at the 
troublesome spring. It became as it 
were an act of devotion ; a vicarious 
expiation for all their own blessin 



The Pool 139 

The ministers and devotees of the 
temples prayed and preached inces- 
santly, and bade their worshipers to 
spare no effort or sacrifice to abate, or 
at least moderate, the scourge ; to 
spend their wealth freely in the cause ; 
and they declared as with one voice 
that thus only could the great oppor- 
tunities and privileges of fortune and 
station be sanctified and the Pool be- 
come a means of redemption from too 
much worldliness. 

At length, as all these efforts 
seemed in vain, and as no one had 
the hardihood to explore and attack 
the sources of the corrupt and ma- 
leficent Pool, since the stream in its 
long course turned millions of mills 
and was, though not openly admitted, 
the secret source of many of the great- 
est fortunes in the city, all classes of 
the more prosperous citizens, led by 
the priests and professional philanthro- 
pists, turned their attention to the 
founding and maintenance of every 



140 Prose Idyls 

sort of charitable institution for the 
relief and care of those who had most 
directly suffered by the poison of the 
Pool. For when it did not at once 
kill those who breathed its vapors or 
who happened to fall into its waters, 
it had the singular effect of transform- 
ing its victims into sots, paupers, mur- 
derers, thieves, idiots, courtesans and 
beggars. 

Then all the people rejoiced at the 
work of their benevolent hands, and 
they became proud of their hospitals, 
asylums and prisons, and vaunted them 
as the tokens of the highest civiliza- 
tion, the crown of the most sublime 
religion. The duty of the rich was 
taught and expounded even by million- 
aires themselves. And it now be- 
came plain, the unexpressed creed of 
the people, why some were unfortunate 
enough to have been contaminated or 
destroyed by the affliction of the Tool. 
It was that tho spirit of charity mi 
find exercise in the bosoms of the for- 



The Pool 141 

tunate and the saved. In short, it was 
a Providential Pool — a blessing in dis- 
guise ; and its reflex influence almost 
more than compensated its monstrous 
brood of ills. 

Only a few differed from this view 
and execrated it, and endeavored at 
the peril of their lives to reach and to 
redeem the upper waters of the insidi- 
ous river. But they were such as had 
no standing in society. They were 
dreaded in all the temples and public 
rostrums ; they were denounced by 
the wealthy and sneered at by the 
most astute political economists. The 
evil has always existed and must al- 
ways exist. It was inherent in the 
constitution of the universe, handed 
down by all the generations of our 
forefathers, and the inevitable con- 
comitant of vast cities and crowded 
populations, they said. What age, what 
city, had not its Pool ? All we can do 
is to mitigate the miseries of our own 
— decently bury those whom it has 



142 Prose Idyls 

robbed of life, succor those whom it 
has infected. Let us apply our ener- 
gies, our laws, our religion to the 
effects, not to the sources, of this 
black blot. The sources are beyond 
our jurisdiction ; the stream, well, that 
has too many interests attached to 
make its diversion or purification pos- 
sible. 

Still the few, the few of no account, 
with but feeble hands and insufficient 
means, revolutionary and impracticable 
visionaries and dreamers, set forth to 
find the fountain of that deadly river 
and to cleanse its polluted waters ere 
they should reach the unconquerable 
Pool. 



THE GOVERNOR 

The Governor of the State at length 
had attained the goal of his ambition ; 
he was Governor. 

With utmost vigilance and an as- 
siduity that knew neither nights nor 
holidays, the respectable citizen had 
gathered step by step all the goods 
and distinctions of this world. 

He was Governor ; and now that he 
was installed, after so much enterprise 
and toil, the days of his honor seemed 
idle. There was nothing to struggle 
for, and he became listless and, to tell 
the truth, more weary than ever before 
in all his laborious life. 

This man, so noted for invariable 
aplomb, an invincible winner of every 
stake he played for, found himself now 
at a Barmecide banquet garnished with 
the apples of Sodom. 



144 Prose Idyls 

Thus far he had looked out upon 
the world from one point of view, or 
at most two — his own interests and 
conflicting interests. But a metaphy- 
sician should perhaps resolve them 
into one. Now that he was Governor 
and risen above such narrowness, 
having no more to gain and secure 
from loss, it occurred to him to relieve 
the tedium of his office by traveling 
about among his subjects and discov- 
ering what they were like. Just to 
amuse himself he traveled in disguise, 
with no insignia of his rank, in com- 
moner clothes even than those he 
had worn since that long past time 
when he was an obscure and penniless 
struggler. 

He saw and talked with all condi- 
tions of men, the humble, the proud, 
the rich and the poor. To his astonish- 
ment, he found that every one wished 
to be Governor of the State. Every 
one thought he was qualified for the 
office, and nearly every one that he 
merited it. 



The Governor 145 

" What, then," said he, " must not 
the Governor of the State be a great 
man ? " 

" Well, now," answered all, " does 
not being Governor make him a great 
man ? " 

He had never looked at it in that 
light. But he was a sensible man 
withal ; and perchance for the first 
time in his life of arduous endeavor he 
now had time for reflection, and a 
third point of view. 

He gave over traveling, and entered 
upon the duties of his office. He ex- 
hausted himself in labors for his peo- 
ple ; but never before had he found 
any labor half so delightful, half so sat- 
isfactory. 

At the close of his term of office, 
yes, mark you well, at the end, when 
he was about to become a private cit- 
izen once more, all the people said he 
was a great man. 



PIGMIES 

I should not write about pigmies, 
as it is so little a subject, except for 
the sake of controversy. Homer and 
some others who love to make small 
things large, and the large larger, con- 
tend that they are thirteen and one 
half inches in height. This I deny. 

"But first let us have some prem- 
ise, some pou sto to set out from." 
Well, I assert that there are such be- 
ings as pigmies, and second that they 
are men. "Agreed." Then I pro- 
ceed : there are pigmies ; pigmies are 
men ; they are thirteen and one half 
inches in height. "It must be so." 
I admit the first two propositions, 
but deny the third ; they are not thir- 
teen and one half inches in height. 
"But that is mere assertion." Nay, I 
bring an eyewitness ; I myself have 



Pigmies 147 

seen them much smaller. " What 
confusion you introduce ! This is not 
a court but a disputation. We want 
arguments, not facts. And are you 
speaking of pigmies, or men ? I am 
completely confused." Both ; I have 
seen pigmies who were men, and men 
much more dwarfed than pigmies. 

But this is enough for so pigmean a 
subject. 



BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LOT 

It was a great while ago that I set 
out to explore the world in order to 
better my condition and if possible 
exchange lots with some one more 
fortunate than myself. 

In the world where I then had my 
being, this enterprise was not uncom- 
mon and seldom difficult, as the inter- 
change took place between those who 
had everything to gain and nothing to 
lose. I demanded the same method, 
but on a more magnificent scale. 
And it seemed to me that I had some- 
thing which all the world would want 
as soon as its existence was found out. 
On the other hand, I had heard of 
various possessions which I much de- 
sired for my own. I cannot remember 
now all of them, it was so long ago ; 
and they were almost infinite in num- 



Brethren of the Common Lot 149 

ber, for at that time I never heard of 
any perfection that I did not immedi- 
ately covet. 

Fame, however, I do remember, 
was the first thing that made me ac- 
quisitive. Strangely enough it was an 
animal that kindled in me the ardor 
for fame. I was reading of Alexander 
and his war horse Bucephalus ; sud- 
denly there came into my heart a feel- 
ing of emulation, of envy, not of Al- 
exander but of Bucephalus, that he 
should be famous through so many 
ages, that even he should have had a 
city built and named in his honor on 
the stream of Hydaspes. 

After that, all renowned works of 
men excited me beyond measure, and 
there was not one I did not feel equal 
to performing. I steadily looked for- 
ward to the doing something remark- 
able ; but it was always that which 
had already been done remarkably ; 
that which had been achieved and 
crowned. Ah, yes, it was the crown 



150 Prose Idyls 

that dazzled. However, there is some 
merit, some nobleness in youth that is 
susceptible to such dazzling, and whose 
impetuosity will not stop to consider 
how long it takes for silver to become 
gold. 

So I set forward to the conquest of 
the world on Bucephalus. It was a 
glorious morning, and a thousand 
omens beckoned me forward. The 
world seemed standing a-tiptoe to 
welcome me. Every one would be 
ready to exchange gifts, and I should 
soon possess all that I so ardently 
longed for. Hitherto longings had 
been more puissant than action in 
bringing the accomplishment of my 
aspirations. These are the pawns of 
the first years, craftily given away to 
lure us on. 

Lightly I rode on toward the hill 
which had thus far bounded my hori- 
zon. For a long time I had supposed 
the world was just on the other side 
of that hill. Reaching the top, I 



BretJire7i of the Common Lot 151 

looked up and down, but saw nothing 
— nothing save another hill beyond. 
It must be over there, I thought. I 
rode on. Still more hills, and higher 
and higher. After riding over these 
and many another, Bucephalus became 
worn out, and I was obliged to dis- 
mount and go on afoot, and I therefore 
threw away with infinite regret one 
after another those precious articles I 
had taken for my journey, which I 
thought would be much desired in the 
world to which I was going in 
triumph. 

As I was now on foot, I avoided the 
hills that before had only seemed 
worthy of my steed and myself, and I 
began to traverse the valleys and 
plains. It was humiliating, but having 
lost Bucephalus and left behind most 
of my treasures, there was no help for 
it ; I had now only myself to recom- 
mend me, in case I should at length 
reach the world. 

Wonderful to tell, it was in the 



152 Prose Idyls 

plains and valleys, and not as I sup- 
posed upon the glorious hilltops, that 
I began to find signs of men — yes, 
and not at all the sort of beings I had 
imagined them. 

"This," said I, "cannot after all be 
the great world I have pictured. I will 
inquire the way." Now before, this 
had not seemed necessary, but only 
just to ride on and one would surely 
arrive. 

" Why, here you are," answered a 
man of whom I made my inquiry. " It 
is right here ; you need not take an- 
other step." 

" Why," said I, " this is only what I 
left behind — just like it." 

"No doubt of it," answered the 
man : " it 's all of a piece ; a common 
sort of piece too, neither better nor 
worse than what you see and will find 
everywhere. What have you got to 
sell ? " 

" Nothing," said I. 

" Well, then, what do you want to 
buy ?" 



Brethren of the Common Lot 153 

" Nothing," I repeated. 

"Ah, I see, you have made your 
fortune." 

" On the contrary, I am in search of 
it, and that was the reason I was 
inquiring the way to the world." 

" It is neither ahead of you nor be- 
hind you," now spoke the man, but 
rather less bluffly, I thought. "But 
what do you want of the world if you 
have nothing to sell and neither want 
to buy anything ? " 

"Oh," said I, "I understood the 
world was a place where one could ex- 
change his own gifts for others which 
he desired. I heard of a great many 
which I deeply longed to have ; and 
moreover, I felt sure that my own 
would be equally wanted, nay, indis- 
pensable, when once known." 

" Young man," and now he spoke 
quite gravely, " I see you really have 
got your fortune to make, and you 
need not go a step further. Stay 
where you are. This is the world. 



154 Prose Idyls 

There is no more of it if you go round 
and over and through it. It is all of a 
piece, as I said, and common stuff at 
that ; only remarkable when you do 
not know it very well, which I see is 
your case. Did you never learn of a 
place called Here, and a time called 
Now ? You have arrived at both, and 
none too soon. Come, cast in your 
fortune with us, and you will find it. 
Be a brother of the common lot ; 
Brethren of the Common Lot, we call 
ourselves in this corner of the world, 
and we are trying to extend the name. 
Perhaps you can help us. Do not 
think to better your lot except in the 
betterment of the common lot. Give 
what you have ; expect nothing." 

This was so different a reception to 
that I had anticipated that I was at 
first greatly chagrined and cast down. 
But the magnanimity of the man's ap- 
peal, when I came to reflect, appeared 
somehow so much akin to the early en- 
thusiasm with which I set out on my 
pilgrimage, and in fact the clear echo 



Brethren of the Common Lot 155 

of all those youthful and indistinct 
aspirations, that at length I yielded ; 
and contributing the few things I had 
managed to save, after Bucephalus 
gave out and I had left the ambitious 
hills, I became a regular and humble 
member of the Brethren of the Com- 
mon Lot. 

Sometimes now^I see myself as at 
the beginning of m.y adventure, and I 
smile ; but poor Bucephalus sometimes 
makes me sigh. Whoever rides him 
is sure of a fall ; yet for all that wishes 
to mount again and resume the vision 
of a world led in triumphal procession. 

Thus I dally often with the shining 
memorials of greatness ; but not for 
that Olympian dream would I now 
exchange the substantial happiness 
created for each other by magnani- 
mous and sympathetic men. 

I salute you, Brethren of the Com- 
mon Lot ! Let me ever share your 
life ; and may I, in a little degree, in- 
crease your joys and lessen your sor- 
rows. 



THE SUPERFLUOUS MAN 

The excess of funds, of incomes or 
of productions, is nothing to be com- 
pared to a surplus man — the one 
more than is needed. It arrests the 
economy of the universe. He usually 
leads a melancholy life, or betimes 
commits suicide. But upon Peter 
Demeter the lot fell happily, and with 
success. Every one loved him, al- 
though nobody required his services. 
He was left entirely out of the account 
of worldly affairs, as much as if he 
were the creation of mythology, or of 
a poet's fancy. He had room for him- 
self, space, in the astronomical sense, 
and that was all. 

Wherever he proffered his services 
they were declined, not unkindly, but 
with a word and manner that implied 
he existed for other purposes. If he 



The Superfluous Man 157 

was found by his mistress helping the 
maids in the kitchen scour knives, she 
would say, " Peter, you need not do 
that ; Sarah has nothing else to do ; it 
is her work." Then Peter wandered 
into the garden, and seeing the weeds, 
began to pull them. But his master 
passing by said, " Now, Peter, do not 
trouble yourself about the weeds ; the 
gardener has men enough to look out 
for the garden." 

It was just so at the barn, in the 
field, summer and winter. Every- 
where his efforts were declined ; it 
was another's work ; the place was 
filled. 

At length it seemed to poor, super- 
fluous Peter that this was his lot in 
life, that is, the man not needed, the 
one man too many in the company. 
Nevertheless, so long as he was not 
kicked out of the world, but had prop- 
erly the empire of an empty place, 
the recognized lord of nothing-to-do, 
and as much beloved as if he had 



158 Prose Idyls 

written three successful plays, or were 
the owner of a prize yacht, Peter 
Demeter contented himself with being 
instead of doing. 

Philosophy, it is said, makes one 
resigned to his fortune, and Peter was 
a philosopher in his homely, uncon- 
scious way. Retiring to the oaks in 
warm afternoons he meditated much, 
and came to the conclusion that supe- 
rior beings and powers were also with- 
out occupations. At least, it seemed 
to him that God did not lift a finger 
in the afternoon of pleasant summer 
days. In the morning and toward 
sundown there appeared to be some 
stir, but one could not call it work. 
It was more like the thought in his 
mind, which came and went, and then 
all was still again. In this stillness he 
heard that work had long since ceased ; 
and that for a great many ages past, 
all, save man, had been existing in 
heavenly, undisturbed meditation and 
repose. Nature herself was simply 
being, without effort or labor. 



The SuperflitoiLS Man 159 

At night when Peter looked up at 
those bright spots in the heavens, he 
was more than ever convinced that 
they existed like himself, there where 
nothing was expected of them but to 
be still and serenely shine. 

In fine, he found that he was not 
alone in having nothing to do and in 
being only wanted for himself. There 
was God, and all infinite, divine things; 
the stars, and nature for the most part, 
in exactly the same predicament. Cer- 
tainly, he was in good company, al- 
though he belonged not in any earthly 
society of doers and sufferers. 



THE FAMILY MIRROR 

Six generations and a half had seen 
themselves reflected in it. Children 
had raised themselves on tiptoe and 
stood on chairs to begin the lifelong 
search for themselves. Before it aged 
and spectacled women had for two 
centuries arranged their caps and bon- 
nets — a little one-sided — and turned 
to a daughter's eyes for the last touch. 
Babies had been held in front of it, 
and had leaned from their mother's 
arms to welcome with a kiss the face 
seen for the first time. Dogs held up 
to its disinterested reflections growled 
at the intruding stranger ; and cats, 
bewildered by the image of themselves 
in its obscure depths, ran off in terror. 

The reflection of the walls of the 
room was two hundred years old, but 
in its impassive, unagitated projection 



The Family Mirror 161 

upon the polished glass, it had not 
grown old at all nor ever wearied or 
worn its ancient vis-a-vis. 

The mirror gleamed as brightly as 
on the first day it was hung in its 
place ; it had the same sincere counter- 
feit for every one who stopped before 
it, or only passed, never so much as 
turning the head. But that was rarely. 
Or, if it happened so, it was with such 
as had become negligent of them- 
selves, or indifferent to the opinions 
of others. Or, it might be one — and 
that was the only time the mirror's 
hospitable heart was dimmed with 
jealousy — one who hurried by to see 
herself mirrored in the eyes of her 
lover. 

The room in which it hung was 
alone its loyal, eternal companion. 
c< We have been together a long time," 
said the mirror. " So much is changed ; 
so many are gone we used to see ; so 
many new faces before me. No sooner 
have I seen them grow up and become 



1 62 Prose Idyls 

fond of displaying their beauty before 
me, which I had the joy of first tell- 
ing them of, than I begin to discover 
wrinkles and furrows, the roses of 
their cheek and lip pale, waving hair 
straighten and whiten, and the jaws 
droop from the toothless mouth. I 
conceal these as long as I can, but, 
alas, they are on some day discovered, 
and the dejected creatures come no 
more to me for flattery. They come 
only to know they yet live and must 
put on their clothes as usual. Then 
in pity I help them to pin a collar in 
its place, or to see that a waist is not 
under the arms." 

Six generations and a half had come 
and gone in the family mirror, and 
notwithstanding its complaint their 
images sometimes returned and pre- 
sented themselves in its faithful face. 
It had kept in the strictest confidence 
all the family secrets. It had seen 
the blemishes as well as the forbidden 
charms of many a maiden beauty. It 



The Family Mirror 163 

had seen without a blush upon its 
chaste face the nude, the decollete, the 
common dishabille. Its pudicity and 
secrecy were articles of faith among 
the women of the family. Else why 
those planetary rings of skirts in the 
middle of the floor, still warm from 
the so lately cinctured star? Why those 
jewels scattered with so lavish hands ; 
those slippers walking in so many and 
in such contrary directions ; those 
powders, perfumes, brushes and combs 
and pins, ribbons and laces, all the 
delenda and indusiae of past festival 
toilets; all that bewildering, captivat- 
ing confusion ? No, never had the 
loyal mirror betrayed these confi- 
dences. It had onlv amused itself with 
such foibles ; it remained familiar, and 
dissembled its experiences with ladies 
like a successful courtier. 

But it was quite another emotion 
when with high ancestral pride it mir- 
rored and was honored with a parting 
glance from the family's latest bride. 



164 Prose Idyls 

A tear ran down its usually placid and 
imperturbable countenance. 

What fashions in dress had it not 
seen ! what beauty, what sweetness of 
mouth and of eye grow to their zenith, 
then descend to decay ! It had even 
looked upon the face of the dead when 
taken down to testify if any breath yet 
lingered to tarnish its silvery, polished 
surface. It treasured in its deepest 
heart innumerable records of vanity, of 
love and hate which had been unwit- 
tingly revealed to it, and which it 
learned to know almost at the first 
look. These it sent away from its 
presence, confident of not being dis- 
covered by any one else ; while all the 
outward fashion of face and form it 
sent away in equal confidence of being 
disclosed and admired by everybody. 

It never itself practiced any kind 
of deceit, though often the witness 
of self-deception, and six generations 
and a half, fondly in youth and sadly 
in old age, had believed all that it 



The Family Mirror 165 

revealed to them. Nor had it ever 
grown old, though seeing so many- 
years, so many families appear, disap- 
pear and reappear. It shone as brightly 
as ever in its ancient oaken frame, 
adorned with gilded rosettes and re- 
ticulations of niello. There was but 
one mark of the abusive years, but 
one blemish in all its luminous surface, 
a small spot that reflected — nothing ! 
Through that spot a boy of the sixth 
generation had once undeceived him- 
self, and all his illusions had fled 
away. He too curiously sought the 
mirror's secret ; and lo, removing the 
enchanted silver curtain, astonished 
and suddenly, prematurely wise, pene- 
trating the mystery, he looked through 
the hypocritic glass and found nothing 
there — found neither the substantial 
image of himself for which he was in 
search, nor a single one of those shad- 
ows which had seen themselves in it 
for two hundred years. 



A MOUNTAIN MAID 

Among the mountains the eyes are 
uplifted and acquire the habit of psalm- 
ists and preachers. From their pin- 
nacles one again seeks the level of his 
being, and sees more distinctly whither 
the stream of his life is flowing, or 
where it stagnates. A stage-coach is 
the happy medium of contemplation ; 
its elevation is not too great ; one still 
looks up, but down also. Whatever is 
below is but slightly diminished ; the 
loftiness of nature and the littleness of 
man are abridged ; the passenger still 
feels an interest in earthly things. 

I looked down into the upturned eyes 
of a little maid by the roadside, who 
mutely offered a cup of strawberries. 
Their fragrance exhaled toward me as 
freshly as when I have bent over them 
in the grass. She herself seemed like 



A Mountain Maid i6j 

the flower from which they had grown 
— child of the forest and the mountain 
pasture. Untamed as yet, her eyes 
had the gleam of an animal, uncertain 
whether you are friendly or hostile. 
Not one suave, fawning taint had she 
of the beggar who solicits or the seller 
who sells. Take them or leave ; she 
invites you only as the strawberry on 
the stem invites you to pluck and eat. 
She has no want that you can supply; 
and any small coin will fill her cup, 
when you have taken and eaten, as 
full as it was before — full, to over- 
flowing. And she will not be grate- 
ful ; there is a deeper, richer feeling 
than that in her little heart — it re- 
joices and leaps up. Her happiness 
is her own ; it does not concern you, 
nor are you the cause of it. You are 
merely coincident, you the accidental 
spectator. 

I look down into her unconquer- 
able eyes, in whose hazel depths sleeps 
the spirit that controls her being, and 



1 68 Prose Idyls 

which will be self-discovered in long 
years of suffering and thought, or in 
an instant of joy. She knows not 
yet that her feet are bare ; their cus- 
tomary brown does not abash her ; nor 
her tanned hands, nor the ends of her 
fingers pink only with the wine of the 
strawberry, nor her short frock whose 
barbaric calico her white apron half 
conceals. I cannot tell whether her 
lips are a natural color or painted with 
strawberries ; but much should I like 
to put them to the test. But she, the 
untamable, the imperious maid, would 
rather be struck than caressed. Her 
nature, as yet sexless, admonishes her 
of the beginnings of the loss of free- 
dom. Her foot is light on the trap 
that will subdue her. 

I reach down for the cup of straw- 
berries while she on tiptoe holds it up, 
and there is a sudden gleam in her 
eyes as if she read my thoughts and 
defied their familiarity. 

I ride on, and I think of thee, little 



A Mountain Maid 169 

queen of thy native mountains, as I 
see peak after peak whose heights 
threaten while they attract ; where 
man can never build his house nor 
bring his bride until worn — worn to 
the common level. 



THE DIVIDED HOUSE 

The mountain once looked clown 
upon it with sympathy. For before 
Capella began to climb over the 
Moats, Chocorua itself was nearly rent 
in twain. But it healed the chasm with 
the forests, and made of the rent a 
pathway to the stars. 

For millions of years the mountain 
beheld neither men nor houses at its 
feet. At length it saw approach, hand 
in hand, a human pair. It saw a house 
builded. Then to Chocorua the veil 
was lifted ; the meaning of the world, 
the long silence, its own solitude and 
wounds, the interminable periods of 
the creative forge, were revealed. 
With such joy did it watch toward the 
earth that it lost half its height, and 
forgot its ancient neighbor the sky. 

Capella arose slowly and sorrowfully 



The Divided Hoitse 171 

with an uncertain gleam, hovering in 
the tops of the pines. In midsummer 
the leaves of the vine turned their 
backs to the bitter north wind. The 
butterfly folded her wings and re- 
mained motionless. The brooks hid 
themselves among the stones, the 
Lake shrank to a puny bowl. 

Chocorua, astonished at these things, 
looked down into the valley and saw 
the beloved house cut into two parts 
by the same hands that had planned 
and built. Exactly through the centre 
went axe and saw. He took his half, 
she hers ; and facing each other, with 
lone, unclasped hands, they now made 
the sundered sides the very fronts of 
their separate dwellings. 

There they lived out their lives, 
defiantly but without speech, until the 
windows were dark ; and the ruins of 
that divided house the traveler jour- 
neying toward the mountain still sees 
and questions. 

But never again did Chocorua take 



172 Prose Idyls 

any pleasure in the affairs of men and 
women. It withdrew ; it raised itself 
once more to its ancient heights, its 
primeval thoughts. And this is why, 
disappointed with mankind, it is to-day 
so haughty, so mysterious and incom- 
municable. 



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